It was pretty goddam weird, having a sort-of-twin-from-an-alternate-universe as his brand new brother. Obviously, in the choice between super-juvie from hell and awkward sibling feelings, he chose the awkwardness. That didn't make it any less weird.
He'd already failed at being a son; he was pretty sure exploding his high school had ensured his failure as a student (his 42% average probably hadn't helped). He was trying to at least succeed at the whole brother thing. So, when Billy had flown out all blue and crackly from Teddy's hospital room up to the roof, he'd followed him. Not the girls, or the robot, or Mr. Anger-and-Racism-Issues-Leader-man. That had been a bad decision; he should have let Kate or Cassie handle this. What was he supposed to say? Sorry your boyfriend has massive organ damage and a fifty-fifty chance of survival?
"Um… Sorry all this happened."
Billy looked up at him. "I'm… sorry for running out like that. It's just… this is all my fault."
"Oh, come on, Billy, this isn't anyone's fault, especially not yours." So far, Tommy was borrowing all of his lines from his parents' Sorry, sweetie, we're getting a divorce speech.
Billy stood up and started advancing towards him. "Give me a way that this isn't my fault. While I was supposed to be providing air cover, Teddy got hit with a Skrull power suppressor and four bullets. Then, instead of doing the thing any sane person would do, like trying to heal him or… or… punching out that Z-list supervillain, I spazzed. I collapsed a business building and shot lightning bolts everywhere. If Cassie hadn't been looking out for Teddy while I was acting like some kind of crazy idiot, he could have died right then and there instead maybe dying right now!" Billy was breathing heavily; the blue sparklers coming out of his fingertips signalled to Tommy that a change of topic was necessary.
"Billy, you are the sanest person I know. You are almost too sane. Anyway, that idiot we were fighting was the crazy one. 'Thank goodness I pilfered that fool Reed Richard's stores! With this power suppressor, that great green guppy will be..' um… woops… yeah… sorry." Tommy could have kicked himself. Worst brother of the year goes to… For a moment, he really felt like he deserved every god, you are stupid look he'd gotten since he joined the team.
Billy, always the nice guy, let Tommy's idiotic sarcasm go by without a comment. "Tommy, I am aware of how my sanity works. There have only been one or two moments in my life where I really thought I could kill someone; they were about Teddy, someone… hurting him, or threatening him. Today, I had a nervous breakdown while Teddy was bleeding on the ground. The place where my sanity is a little blurred seems to be centered right on him."
Tommy felt a little bit out of his league. Debonair sarcasm? Maverick-style heroism? He was your man. But emotional family members doubting their sanity? How the hell did people deal with this stuff? Felt like time to awkwardly change the subject.
"So, bro… um… yeah… ah… heh… um… How'd you and Teddy meet?"
"The usual way. Robot from the future assembled a super-powered crime fighting squad with us in it."
"It sort of makes sense. You know, two guys of similar… uh, dispositions meet up. I mean, there aren't that many teenage… guys like you, right?" Tommy was discovering that he even had trouble changing the subject properly.
"You kidding? This is New York, Tommy. Wear the right pants near an arts school and you're surrounded." Billy had a somewhat dead look on his face; he doing his best to crack jokes, which was something.
Billy seemed pretty eager to change the topic too. Someone who wasn't Tommy would have been worried about how he was going into denial. However, Tommy, who was a bit of a selfish idiot, was just glad that he seemed a little less upset.
Billy almost smiled. "I remember seeing Teddy for the first time. It was kind of embarrassing. I just stared at him with my mouth half open, and he wasn't even green yet. It turned out he was this really great guy, too." He still remembers early days where he bit his lip every time he looked at Teddy. Daydreaming about earrings or the way his hair flopped a little in his face, clenching his fists and then trying to think about lightning or magic.
"Eventually, I kind of snapped. I kissed him for half a second, then freaked out and booked it. I mean, at this point I still thought he was all straight and homophobic. Imagine, you being the perfect example of straight and homophobic, what you would do if some random guy kissed you."
Tommy winced, and made a few retching sounds. Realizing he was kind of proving Billy's point about the homophobia, he stopped.
Billy stared at him for a bit before he kept talking. "The next day he walked up to me and asked to talk to me alone. I was actually really worried about what was coming. He had a look on his face that said It's cool that you're gay, we can still be really, really awkward sort-of friends. Then... you can figure out what happened next. Bada-boom, Bada-bing. Happily F***ing ever after."
Billy stood up straight, seemed to collect himself a little. "Okay… time to go back downstairs and wait in Teddy's room. He should be out of surgery soon, and if he even thought about dying on me, I'll kill him." He floated down to the open window and waited in the room.
Later, when Teddy woke up and he and Billy just stared into each other's eyes for a few hours, Tommy had a weird thought. He was pretty damn far from being a perfect brother, but at least he was learning how not to fail as one.
Uh… I guess this is a prime example of why no-one should write Fanfiction past one in the morning while illegally streaming One Piece episodes.