Author's note: I know it's been forever, and I am directing my apologies to all of the readers who did not send me hate mail. You guys are awesome. The last year's been pretty rough, I was severely depressed and every time I tried to write it came out so awful and hateful. But, everything's good now, and I'm back!

The rest of the month of November was uneventful, apart from the first semester exams. Thanksgiving had been a negotiated ordeal between Josie Stronghold and Gloria Peace. While and Warren were relieved to have the support of their mothers, they both were expecting an explosion from Steven Stronghold as soon as he found out why they were having Thanksgiving dinner together. Normally the Stronghold family would have gone to either of the Grandparent's houses, but Steve was more than happy to forgo the twelve-hour drive.

Josie and Gloria were the two main conversationalists, trying to involve everyone at the table. All conversation remained somewhat awkward and frosty however, and Will and Warren took the first opportunity to get away from their mothers. Josie and Gloria were in the kitchen cleaning up and talking in hushed whispers, while their sons were in the living room.

Warren was observing the pictures on the wall, and Will was flipping channels. A few seconds later, they heard the cellphones going off. The other cellphones.

"Will, Warren? It looks like we all have to go. We'll be back as soon as we can." Josie said, kissing Will on the forehead as she headed toward the Secret Sanctum.

"Have fun boys." Gloria said as she followed, ruffling Warren's hair as she passed them.

The commander clapped them on the shoulders, "Don't get into trouble now boys."

After hearing them take off, the boys let out a sigh of relief.

"Thank God that's over!" Will said as he plopped down on the couch and started flipping through channels on the TV.

Warren was still looking at the family pictures. The smiling family of three, pictures of the grandparents, and even the pictures of all three members of the family through their awkward stages of development were explainable, but there were a few photos that weren't.

There was a baby girl, as indicated by the pink blanket that wrapped her, who separated from the camera by an Incubator and the observation window of the Neo-Natal ICU. She was tiny, obviously premature, with her tiny eyes clamped shut.

There was another picture, of a younger Mrs. Stronghold holding the newborn baby girl in her arms as she lay in a hospital bed, with Will and her husband by her side. Will looked like a toddler, maybe three or four years old. The picture was dated June 18th, 1993.

There was another photo of her over the mantelpiece, but she was older, maybe three years old, it was dated 1996. She had curly reddish brown hair, and bright green eyes. Her forehead was a bit wide, and she looked awfully thin and pale, as if she was sick.

"Hey babe, who's this?" Warren asked, pointing to the girl.

Will walked over to look, but his eyes turned dark as soon as he laid eyes on the picture.

"That's my sister, Elizabeth. She died a few weeks after that picture was taken."

Warren looked at his boyfriend, "I'm so sorry Will… How did she die?"

"She was born too early, thirteen weeks, so she was always prone to getting sick. We were so used to it, but she got some sort of flu I think, and…it killed her."

Warren wrapped his arms around Will and steered him towards the couch. Will started to cry into his shoulder, but Warren didn't mind. He knew that Will attached himself to people, and that it had probably devastated him to live her death the first time.

"Let me guess: your dad is so overprotective, in part, because of her death."

"Yeah, it was hardest for him. She was his little girl. She got her powers awfully early though…"

"What were they?"

A smile crossed Will's face, "She could fly, and she could make herself intangible by doing something to her molecules. I was so jealous."

The two boys decided to watch a movie until their parents got back, and fell asleep on the coach. Luckily, Josie and Gloria were the first ones home, and were able to wake them up before Steve saw the position they were in.

After thanksgiving, the students had exam preparation, and after that, they had to take the first semester exams. Will would have been freaked out if Warren hadn't been tutoring him in Hero History and Mad Science, but the gang survived to see Christmas Break.

Since Will's parents had won the trip to Hawaii for their sales, Ms. Peace was more than happy to have the Warren stay with Will over the break.

It ended up being an endless run of Christmas movies, action movies, sci-fi movies, junk food, and soda, until Warren pulled a specific movie out of his bag.

"I love this movie." Warren said, putting the disc into the DVD player.

Will picked up the case, and looked at the cover. His eyes widened almost immediately when he saw the title.

"The Descent?"

"Yep."

"What kind of movie is it?"

Warren sat back on the coach, putting his arm around Will's shoulders.

"You'll see."

Thirty minutes in and Will was jumpy, but when the crawler popped up behind that one woman, he actually screamed. It wasn't a girly scream, more like an 'oh-jesus-christ-save-my-ass!' scream, but Warren chuckled anyway.

He pulled Will into his lap, and put a finger over his lips. When the movie was over, Will was practically in the fetal position with his arms tucked tightly inwards. He only noticed that his head was against Warren's chest when his boyfriend started chuckling at his behavior again.

"It's not funny!"

"It's just a movie."

"Yeah, but thanks to you, I am going to have nightmares!"

Warren threw his head back a bit, but rolled over so that he was on top of Will, who was lying on the coach. He had that overly satisfied smirk plastered on his face, and Will's eyes had once again grown to the size of dinner plates.

"What if I kiss it better?" Warren asked, still smirking and bringing their lips even closer at a tantalizingly slow pace.

It was no different from any of their other kisses, until Warren's hand crept under Will's shirt. With the first contact having been made, Will slowly lifted his hands to Warren's back, pulling the older boy's shirt up in the process. Distances between skin and skin were closed; gasps were elicited as treacherously sensitive areas were touched.

When they broke apart for air, Warren pulled his shirt off, and proceeded to burn away Will's. As Will fought to regain the use of his lungs and brain, Warren leaned in and began to nibble on his boyfriend's bottom lip.

"Warren?" Will asked the other boy, propped up on his elbows and still trying to catch his breath.

"Yeah?" Warren asked, still nibbling on Will's bottom lip and moving his arms around his boyfriend's waist.

"What are we doing?"

Warren stopped nibbling on Will's lip to actually consider the question. Will laid back against the coach and closed his eyes. Warren leaned back, only then realizing that he had been straddling Will's waist the whole time.

When he thought about it, he was trying to go on to the next step. In most of the relationships he had been in, that next step had been sex. He was getting the feeling that there were quite a few steps in between when it came to his relationship with Will. It had always turned out that after he had sex with someone the relationship dwindled away. But this time, with Will, he had a connection that was more than physical, which led him to believe that he had to hit those in between steps.

After all, Will was the Commander's son, and since he and Warren were bound to have a rocky start anyway, it wouldn't help to screw Will without any blessing of any sort. Even though it was clear that their Moms were aware and in favor of their relationship, the real hurdle would be coming out to Will's dad. Then there was the small, insignificant fact that Warren was Barren Battle's son. It just kept getting better and better.

After the Strongholds got back from Hawaii, which preceded an uneventful Christmas at Grandma's, school started up again. It was monotonous and mundane work, but it helped Will settle in to his relationship with Warren more easily. He didn't have to face his father's questions for a majority of the day, and their mothers didn't get a chance to bug them about it.

No one in the school dared give the two a second glance when they were seen together, but that luxury ended when Speed, Lash, and Penny returned from their stint in solitary. For the most part, they were ignored however, for no one was quite willing to forgive them yet. Being turned into an infant was not how any of the students had wanted to spend their Homecoming night.

The routine came to an end when Will's dad asked to talk to him in private one day, after he returned from a mission. The first alarming fact was how early he was home, and that his Mom was not with him.

"Hey Dad? Why are you home so early? And where's Mom?"

Steve Stronghold went into the kitchen and set about making himself a tuna salad sandwich. Will followed, trying to hide his anxiety.

"Your Mom's having a girl's night with some of her friends. She said that you and I should spend some time together."

Will let out the air he had been holding in his lungs in pure relief, but then his Dad turned towards him again, still spreading Tuna on a slice of white bread.

"Oh, yeah! I almost forgot, she said there was something you wanted to tell me."

'Thanks Mom', Will thought to himself with heavy sarcasm. This was so like her. She got tired of waiting for him to broach the subject, so she did it for him. There was just one problem: she wasn't here to help out. He was on his own, in a one-on-one with his Dad. He let out another sigh, and closed his eyes.

"Actually, there are a couple of things. One, is that I'm gay. The other is that I have a boyfriend."

He had hoped the last piece of information that he had withheld might save him from all out total fury, and he hadn't been wrong. However, The Commander's eyes were wide, and he was staring blankly at his son.

"Is this another of your jokes?"

"No Dad, I am gay and I have a boyfriend. I am 100% serious."

The Commander fell silent, and looked into the space in front of him contemplatively. After a few seconds, which created what felt like the longest and most awkward silence in Will's life, he turned back to his son.

"Alright then."

Will felt like he was going to fall over backwards. Had his Dad really just said that? Then again, he didn't know who his boyfriend was yet either…

"Oh…okay then. I'll just go upstairs and…do my homework." Will said, turning around and heading towards his room in utter relief.

He only made it a few steps before his Dad snapped his head back up to look at him, "Oh, wait a second! Who's your boyfriend?"

'Oh shit.'

"Warren Peace."

Steven Stronghold dropped his half-eaten Tuna sandwich on the floor, and stared blankly at his son for the second time that night. His face started the process of turning tomato-red as his eyes bulged.

"Barron Battle's son?" The superhero yelled, pounding his fist on the kitchen island and sending the kitchenware on top of it into the air.

Will started trying to shrink himself into the wall behind him, "Yeah."

Steven Stronghold walked up to his son and started shaking him by the shoulders.

"Will! He's trying to seduce you to get revenge against me!"

Will threw his head back and laughed, finding the idea hilarious. He knew that Warren's relationship with his Dad had been rocky since his parent's relationship had started going in the same direction. Warren was an unashamed Mama's boy.

"Dad, he wouldn't do that, for so many reasons!" he said, fighting to stop laughing.

"Will, what you think you know about him doesn't matter! Hero's kids end up heroes and villain's kids end up villains!"

Now Will was angry. "You don't know anything about Warren! Not to mention the fact that he's been raised by his Mom, who is Harmony. Last time I checked, she is one of the greatest psychic heroes in the world!"

His Dad couldn't contest that, and having seen Will's reaction, he was starting to think he might have misjudged the situation. Be that as it may, he still had to be sure. After Elizabeth, he wasn't losing another child.

He put his head in his hands for a few seconds, and Will waited for his response.

"Okay." He said.

Will was having déjà vu, once again feeling as if he would tumble backwards. What was with the one-word replies to very important sentiments?

"What do you mean 'okay'?" he asked, chancing moving a few steps closer to his Dad.

"I don't mind if you see Warren, but this is going to work just like if he was any other boy. You're going to invite him to dinner this Friday so that he and I can have a man-to-man talk."

"You mean so that you can harass him?" Will asked, not sure if he liked this plan either.

"What are you so worried about? We have two weeks left of school, our exams are over, yet you're so nervous you jump when a leaf falls. What's wrong with you?" Warren asked, his arm around Will's shoulders as they walked up to the school.

"I came out to my Dad."

"So why are you worried? That's a good thing!" Layla said.

"Yeah, I know. The bad thing is that he wants to harass Warren either before, during, or after dinner at my house tomorrow."

"It can't be that bad, my Dad did the exact same thing to Zack, and he's alive." Magenta said while pulling her boyfriend over to show that he was indeed alive.

Judging by the look on Zack's face however, he disagreed. He still had nightmares about being chased down by a shape shifting man wearing a dapper suit and tie. Her Dad's cover was a jewelry outlet, while her Mom had a PhD in psychology. Her Dad could shape shift into any animal, while her Mom wasn't a super.

Havingreceived very little comfort, Will headed to the freshman hero class. Since there were only about 25 freshmen to begin with, both the hero and sidekick classes only had about a dozen people in it. Because of the small class size, it was only a matter of time before he had to personally deal with his teachers. The most dreaded ones were Boomer and Medulla, But Mrs. Haskin's history class was pretty fun. It was one of the few classes where comic books counted as research material.

The end of Thursday came quickly, and School went by excessively fast for Will's liking on Friday. Warren was supposed to come to the house at six for dinner, and Will was dreading it. When he heard the doorbell ring, he rushed to answer the door before his Dad could.

When he opened the door, the first thing he noticed was how Warren was dressed. He was wearing jeans, but wearing a black short-sleeved polo and having his hair tied back were bound to help his image with Will's Dad.

"Hey." He said, walking through the doorway and past Will's wide eyes.

"Hey." Will answered stupidly, still looking at Warren's face.

Warren took off his jacket and hung it up by the door, and squared up with Will, taking his hand in his.

"How are you holding up?" he asked, looking into his boyfriend's eyes.

Will nodded, "I'm doing okay."

Warren nodded, and kissed Will's forehead. He led him into the dining room, where Mr. and Mrs. Stronghold were already waiting with the table set up.

The dinner conversation was good and not awkward, and Warren's good manners had to have scored him some points, but Will could see the steely defiance in his Dad's eyes when he looked at Warren. He was so dead set against Warren, for something he couldn't help.

After dinner, Will and his mom cleared the table and went into the kitchen to wash up the dishes. Warren and The Commander went past the living room and into the study. That was what clued Will, Josie, and Warren in to the severity of the situation. Steve didn't want them to interfere or hear the conversation; he wanted it to just be between him and Warren.

The two sat down in chairs facing opposite each other, and Steve leant forward and spoke first.

"If this ends up being a part of some plan for vengeance for your father, and you hurt Will, I will personally make you regret being born."

Warren leaned forward, "First, I have no relationship with my father, you seem to have forgotten the part where he ditched my Mom. Second, I would never hurt Will because I love him. Any questions?"

Steve nodded, and stood up. Warren followed his lead. Steve stuck out his hand, and Warren took it. They shook hands until they were interrupted by a knock at the door.

"Boys, dessert's ready!" Josie Stronghold said after poking her head through the door.

The later part of the evening was much lighter then the first, and when Will walked Warren home afterwards, they were both smiling.

"How many other problems do we have to fix now?" Warren asked.

"Well, our parents are okay with it so, so we can cross that one off the list. So are our friends, so I guess that one can go too… I can't think of any others." Will answered, leaning against Warren's shoulder as they walked down the sidewalk.

The weekend of the last week of school, Mr. and Mrs. Stronghold and Ms. Peace were called to a superhero conference in DC, which left Will and Warren by themselves for the weekend. Will decided to invite the entire gang over for a 'yet-to-be-determined' party.

It ended up being a 'Take-out and Movie marathon party', and everyone was supposed to bring their own movie. At least, that had been the original plan. They ended up watching all of the scary movies while eating store-bought cookies and cheesecake, after destroying five cheese and three pepperoni pizzas.

Ethan was the first to leave, saying he had to be up early the next morning to go to his cousin's wedding or something like that. Zack walked Magenta home about an hour later, and then went to his own home, leaving Will, Warren, and Layla by themselves. Two movies and two containers of cookies later, and Layla had to go home.

As soon as she was out the door, Warren pulled Will into his lap and started kissing him. After a few minutes of this, Warren pulled away and explained, "I've been waiting to do that all night."

The two fell asleep on the mound of blankets and pillows the group had pulled downstairs hours before, Will's head on Warren's chest, and Warren's arm hooked around Will's waist.