FUDGE I THOUGHT I POSTED THIS. I DIDN'T. I'M SORRY. THIS CHAPTER HAS BEEN READY SINCE MARCH.
(It was on AO3. I just forgot to put it here. I'm soooorrryyyy.)
Anyway.
Shoutout to PipeDream for their freaking fantastic comments. Made my day. I'm really glad you're enjoying it so much!
Angst angst angst angst aaaaaangst.
This chapter is angsty.
The purpose of these first several chapters is to set up to the backstories of the YA characters so that they're ready to make a smooth entrance into the MCU. The problem is, some backstories are progressing faster than others. In light of this, I may need to drop certain characters from the story for a while. Characters like Cassie, because she's pretty much ready and my options at this point are pretty much fleshing out various aspects of her childhood and I'm not sure how much Ant-Man fluff I have in me. The comics I've read sort of skimmed over her backstory. Eli's too. And Kate's. They mostly just focused on Billy and Tommy.
Wait. That's what I'm doing.
Why is there backstory so confusing?
Anyway, what I'm getting at is that Cassie might disappear for a while, along with other characters like Eli and Noh-Varr. Kate's gonna stick around a little longer because she's not quite set up, and also because I could right Hawkeye interaction for DAYS.
In fact, the truth of the matter is that the twins are taking a REALLY long time. I might take a chapter JUST to flesh out those two.
So don't panic if a character disappears. I didn't forget them.
Anyway, enjoy!
Warnings: more medical torture, discussion of murder, being trapped in a warzone.
Cassie
Sometimes, Cassie thinks there might be something different about her.
It's nothing big. She can't grow wings or turn invisible or breathe fire. All she knows is that sometimes she can reach the top shelf, and sometimes she can't.
It's weird, but Cassie passes it off as a fluke of her imagination. Somewhere in the back of her mind, though, the observation lingers.
Cassie is a chemist. Not professionally or anything, she's only 10, but she finds chemistry just so interesting. Dad encourages it, tells her that he's happy she's interested in science and that maybe this way she'll turn out better than her old man. She always laughs at that, tells him that's ridiculous, because Dad is a superhero. What could be better than that?
But anyway, Cassie wants to be a chemist. And she wants to be a superhero. And she can only sometimes reach the top shelf.
She's not stupid. Dad is Ant-Man. He changes size on a regular basis. And she spends a lot of time around him. When she was little, she spent so much time in his lab, and, well, surely this has something to do with that.
So Cassie steals a vial of Pym particles and conducts her own experiments. Purely out of scientific curiosity, she tells herself. She wants to be a chemist, and so she's trying to figure out how the Pym particles really work.
Sometimes her clothing doesn't fit right. Her favorite sweater will be too small one day, too big the next.
It has to be her imagination.
Cassie keeps experimenting.
Kate
Clint Barton is an expert sharpshooter, a world-renowned super-spy, and an Avenger.
He also can't make a good coffee to save his life.
"Clint," says Kate exasperatedly.
"Katie?"
"Clint."
"What?"
Kate brandishes her purple mug at his face. "What is this?"
He blinks at her, then blinks at the cup, then blinks at her again. "Um. Coffee?"
"No, Barton. This isn't coffee. This is motor oil."
Clint stares at her, mouth slightly agape and a wounded expression on his face. "Katie-Kate, I think you might be overreacting."
Kate shakes her mug at him aggressively, murky brown liquid threatening to spill over the edges. "I am not overreacting. If I went downstairs and put this in our car, it would run for miles with no problem. This coffee could save the atmosphere and put the oil companies out of business for good. This coffee is a disgrace to the honorable legacy of the coffee bean."
Clint pouts at her. "It's not that bad."
"Really." She says it flat, sardonic, without a hint of question. "Alright, that's it. We're going downtown and we're getting you a cup of good, real coffee."
"But you're supposed to be training—"
"Coffee."
Lucky pricks an ear at them on the way out and then goes back to sleep.
("This is actually...this is actually okay."
"Uh-huh."
"Mine's still not that bad though."
"Go die, Barton.")
Billy
Billy's not sure how long they've been in here. Days? Weeks? Months? All he knows is that his head is in constant pain, and sometimes he hears Tommy screaming in the next cell over.
He hates it. He hates it. He hates this place.
Time passes in a blur. Billy doesn't know who these people are, doesn't understand what they're doing to him, but he hears snatches of things sometimes. Half-phrases and linked words that mean nothing to him. Things like, "lab 09", "subject 37", "dormant x-gene", "excellent progress", "heil HYDRA", "codename Wiccan", "subject 38", "telekinesis", "mutant".
He doesn't understand, but he thinks maybe it has something to do with why his head hurts so much.
Every day the soldiers come and they grab him out of his cell. Every day they drag him, kicking and screaming, to one of the many, many laboratories. And every single day they strap him to the table and the labcoat-clad men 'experiment' on him.
Sometimes he blacks out. When that happens, he dreams of blue sparks and objects bouncing around like someone turned off the gravity.
Sometimes he dreams that he can see Tommy. That he can hear him. That even separated by distance, they are somehow strapped to the same table, feeling each other's pain.
When they're done with him, they drag him back and toss him into his cell, every inch of him hurting. Billy always lies there, in too much pain to move, until he hears Tommy's voice from the next cell over. Then he always crawls over to the wall and sobs, face pressed into the cold metal and tears dripping down onto the floor.
Tommy tries to reassure him, but Billy knows he's bluffing. His brother's voice is hoarse from screaming, and sometimes when Billy really concentrates, he can feel a ghost of pain in his legs, pain that he somehow knows is Tommy's.
"We'll get out," Tommy always whispers, and it's always a bluff. "We'll get out."
And Billy always cries himself to sleep.
Tommy
It's almost a year before things really start to change, and it's another year before everything clicks and Tommy finally gets it.
One second he's sprawled listlessly across the floor of his cell. The next, the dust motes in the air are slowing down and Tommy feels incredibly warm.
"Billy?" he calls, sitting up with a start. "Are you feeling this?"
There's a long, terrible silence, where Tommy thinks maybe the labcoats came early for Billy and somehow he missed it. Then Billy answers.
"Wwwwhhhhhhaaaaaaaaattttttt?"
Billy sounds like a character from one of his dumb action movies, when the video slows down and captures the samurai (or whatever) flipping through the air in slow motion, water droplets cascading dramatically around him as he lets out a long, painfully drawn out yell. Billy's response is exactly that, long and drawn out and stretched like taffy.
"Billy?" says Tommy warily. "Are you okay?"
"Toooooooooommmmmmmmyyyyyyyyy IIIIIIII ddddooooooooonnnn'tttt knnnnnooooooooowwwwww wwwwwhhaaaaaaaaatttt yyyyyyoooooooouuuuuuuuu'rrrrrrreee ssssssaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyiiiiiiiinnnnngggg."
Tommy stands up carefully, using the wall for support and wincing at the pains that run through his legs when he puts weight on them. "Hang on, I'm trying something."
"Wwwwhhhhhhaaaaaaaaattttttt?"
Tommy rolls his eyes and holds a hand in front of his face, flexing the fingers. "Okay," he whispers. "Now go fast."
He shakes his hand as fast as he can and whoa. That's...that's really fast.
"Huh," says Tommy. "How fast?"
And then he runs.
He's fast. He's really, really fast. But it doesn't feel like being fast; it feels like the rest of the world is crawling through molasses. It's awful. Tommy has to concentrate to slow down enough for Billy to understand him, and he has to concentrate to understand what Billy's trying to say to him. And the experiments they run now that he has this power? They're worse, because now they take so much longer. He's tied down for what feels like days and god, it hurts.
Three days in, Tommy blows up the door to his cell.
They catch him before he can escape; he's too weak at this point to put up much of a fight. They take him down hard, and Billy's shouts chase him down the hall as they slap shackles on his wrists and ankles and drag him to a new cell, where his legs still hurt and he's still imprisoned, but now there's weird lights and he can't go fast and, most importantly, he's alone.
"We'll escape," Tommy whispers to himself in the dark one night, trying not to imagine what they're doing to his brother even though he knows exactly what they're doing (he can hear the screams in his head as if they were his own). He wraps himself up in his arms and chokes back tears and whispers it again, hoping that maybe, just maybe, Billy can hear him.
"I'll get us out of here. I promise."
Teddy
Gamora takes him to their ship and tells him to wait. She says that his story is compelling, but she won't promise him anything without the full support of the other Guardians. Teddy understands, but he still hates waiting.
"Why don't you go to sleep?" asks Gamora when she comes to check on him two hours after she first left. "The rest of them aren't going to be back until late, and they'll probably be too drunk to be reasonable until morning anyway."
Teddy blinks and looks downwards, worrying his lip between his teeth.
"You look exhausted."
He shrugs.
"Is there something wrong?"
Teddy heaves a sigh and turns away. "I'm not tired."
Gamora seems skeptical, but she lets it go anyway. Teddy climbs into one of the bunks and turns on his side so that he's facing the wall, but he doesn't sleep. Every time he closes his eyes he sees Mom dying.
So Teddy stares at the wall and he waits. And somehow, without him meaning too, he falls asleep.
When he wakes up there's a tree in his face.
Teddy lets out a startled cry and flails his arms, but he's gotten himself tangled up in the blankets and he ends up plummeting to the floor. Heart still racing, he looks up to find himself surrounded by strangers.
No, not strangers.
The Guardians of the Galaxy.
"So Gamora says you need our help," says Star-Lord, a friendly expression on his face as he bends down and extends a hand to help Teddy off the floor. He stays crouched even when Teddy is standing, dropping to one knee so that their eyes are level. "Mind telling us your story again?"
Teddy takes a deep breath.
And then he tells them.
When he's done, they're all staring at him. Gamora's face is a mask of indifference, her lips just slightly pursed at the edges. Rocket's arms are crossed, his hairy brow furrowed. Groot looks upset, and at some point attached himself to Teddy's ankle in a tiny, twiggy hug. Drax looks devastated.
Star-Lord just looks sad.
"So…" says Teddy. "Um. Will you...will you help me?"
Star-Lord glances at each one of his teammates, some message in his eyes. One by one, they all nod back at him. He approaches Teddy, places one hand on his shoulder, and smiles.
"Welcome to the team, Teddy."
Eli
It's not a good day.
The city is breaking. Rubble flies everywhere. Dust fills the air.
There was no time to evacuate. No warning that this would happen. One moment, the day is like any other. Eli has a cold, so instead of going to school he's wrapped in a blanket in front of the television, a bowl of soup in his hands. The next, the world shakes as a portal opens up in the sky above and aliens spill through.
Eli's seen some pretty unbelievable things, lately. He's heard rumours about his grandpa, about his uncle, about who they are and what they can do. He watched on the news as Tony Stark announced to the world that he is Iron Man and that he is not backing down.
This. This is unbelievable. No, it's worse than unbelievable. It's insane.
Aliens.
Grandma and Grandpa come rushing into the living room, looking panicked. Grandpa scoops him up in his massive arms, Grandma throws the curtains closed, and together they rush to the master bedroom and into their shared walk-in closet.
"It's okay," whispers Grandma, and it's not clear who she's talking to. "It's all gonna be okay."
Grandpa pulls them both close and they stay there in the dark for an hour, listening to each other's breathing.
When it's finally over, they are silent and scared. Eli sits down in front of the television and watches the news.
"—by a new group of heroes being hailed as 'The Avengers', led by a man who appears to be none other than Captain America, the famous supersoldier from the 40s—"
Grandpa sits down beside him and turns off the tv.
"Eli," he says, his voice a low, quiet rumble.
Eli leans against his shoulder, melting into the warmth of his body. "You're my hero, Grandpa," he whispers.
Grandpa pulls him into a tight hug.
Noh-Varr
It takes them a really, really long time to trust him.
At first, they turn him away without a thought. But he follows them. From planet to planet, moon to moon, every rock they land on he is moments behind them. When they battle, he slips his way to fight by their sides without saying a word, and leaves when they tell him to. But always he is their shadow.
Things start to change. Sometimes he saves them. Sometimes they save him. Very little conversation is exchanged, but sometimes Peter Quill will shake his hand after a battle and hum a phrase from some Terran song. As time passes, Noh-Varr is allowed near their ship, allowed to sit by it with Peter's music device tucked around his ears, dancing gently to the beat.
He never sees Dorrek VIII. He suspects it is for the hybrid's sake that he is not yet truly accepted. If not for the danger he poses to the youngest of the crew, he would long since be a member of the team.
Then it happens.
The Guardians, except for Rocket and Groot, are in Bel-Torth, looking for jobs to take on. Rocket is making repairs on the ship, buried deep in its mechanical innards with Groot presumably nearby. Noh-Varr is sitting by the ship, listening to Peter's device.
"—hooked on a feeling!" croons Noh-Varr happily, shoulders swaying to the rhythm. "High on—"
"Um."
Noh-Varr startles and rips the headphones from his ears, swiftly standing and whirling around only to find himself face to face with none other than Dorrek VIII.
"Oh," says Noh-Varr intelligently. "Hello."
Dorrek VIII is not what he was expecting. From his people's tales, he had anticipated some great heroic warrior, or else some hideous half-breed abomination.
He is neither. He is, in fact, nothing but a boy. He's shorter than Noh-Varr by about a foot, younger by several years. Shaggy blond hair falls into shy blue eyes, his skin pale but tinged just slightly with a hint of green.
Dorrek VIII shuffles his feet uncomfortably. "You're Noh-Varr," he says quietly. "They say...Peter says you're nice." He pauses, swallows. "He says you like music."
Noh-Varr blinks. "I. I, yes. Indeed, I do like music. And I do try to be 'nice'."
"Gamora said that I should stay away from you until they're absolutely sure you're not here to kill me."
"What?" This...this is shocking. Of course, Noh-Varr had heard that the Kree command had set a bounty for Dorrek VIII's capture, but it hadn't occurred to him that perhaps they want the boy dead. It makes sense, in a way. Not for the larger culture, but those in command at this time are all followers of Ronan, and they want war with the Skrull. Peace, in their minds, is for the weak.
And. The way Dorrek says it, with such complete conviction, like he really believes Noh-Varr might be here to kill him and that he's resigned to it, like...like he expects it.
It's wrong. Dorrek may be the Unifier, but he's just a child.
Noh-Varr is suddenly very, very glad he left the Kree Empire.
"I am not here to kill you," promises Noh-Varr gently. He wants to reach out with a hand, but he's afraid that that could be construed as an attack. "I swear to you, I have parted with the Empire. I want nothing do with them anymore."
Dorrek bites his lip. "I think I believe you."
"May I ask?" begins Noh-Varr. "If you thought I might kill you, if Gamora had warned you against approaching me, why did you come?"
The boy looks downwards and raises his shoulders in a slight shrug. "I...I guess I just wondered…" he trails off, sounding embarrassed.
"What?"
"I wondered if you were all monsters or if you really were different."
Monsters.
Noh-Varr inhales slowly. "I am not a monster any more than you are, Dorrek. Why would you believe such a thing?"
Dorrek closes his eyes and turns away. There is a long, tense pause where the air seems charged with electricity and Noh-Varr is prepared to let the subject drop before Dorrek speaks.
"Kree killed my mother."
Noh-Varr breathes out a great puff of air. "I am so, so terribly sorry."
Dorrek shrugs again, looking helpless. "It's fine."
"No, it's not. Dorrek, my people did an unspeakable thing to you, and I am so very sorry. I want you to understand that I want no part in any of their plans. I only wish to join the Guardians and help protect our universe from those who wish to do it harm. But if my presence is hurtful to you, I'll leave. I promise."
Silence.
Dorrek looks up at him through long lashes, blue eyes soft with swirling emotion.
"My name's Teddy."
Noh-Varr smiles.
America
One day, perfection is marred.
America remembers it clearly. One moment the sky is a beaming swirl of colors. The next, a dark patch appears, a tear wrought in the very fabric of reality.
America runs, her red cape flapping behind her. She runs to her moms, grabs Mami around the waist and cries into the fabric of her clothing. Mamá stands behind her, worriedly combing her fingers through America's hair, and they stay like that until Mami manages to coax an answer out of her.
"What is it, love?" she murmurs, bending down to kiss America's forehead.
"There's a hole," sobs America, frightened. "There's a hole in the sky."
Noh-Varr's section got really long. Also, I don't know how to write Noh-Varr. Yikes.
Ages are the same except:
Cassie — 10
Kate — 15
Tommy (and Billy) — 6
Eli — 10
Furthermore, I screwed up the ages and dates in the first chapter. I've fixed them now.
Drop me a comment!