This is part of the same universe as A Hornet's Fate.

"Let me go! I said, let me go now!" Ritchie yelled, roughly pushing against Eddie. Thankfully it wasn't with his full strength, on account of him being so stinking drunk he could barely walk and his teammate was essential carrying him.

"Shut up."

"No! I won't, I said -"

"Shut up!" Eddie hissed, looking around desperately in fear. "We're not safe, we have to get out of here before Iron Man finds us."

"I can take -" Ritchie stopped talking suddenly which made Eddie frown in concern, before he heard a gulping sound that made him cringe in disgust. "I can take him."

"Ritchie, you can't even compete with him as an alcoholic. So shut up."

"How many times do I have to say this!" Ritchie yelled, rather suddenly pushing Eddie against the wall with his enhanced strength. "I'm in costume! Secret identity!"

"Ok, I get -"

"SECRET!"

"Ritchie, let go!"

"IDENTIY!"

Despite his helmet protecting him, Eddie sill felt a bit stunned after headbutting Ritchie as hard as he could. Thankfully his teammates drunkenness worked to his advantage, with Ritchie collapsing to the ground and groaning in pain as he clutched at his face. Ignoring him for a moment, Eddie looked around the alleyway while hoping that nobody had heard them, while also checking the sky for a red and yellow armoured man. When he saw none he reached down and grabbed Ritchie's, in Eddie's opinion, impractical cape and activated his jetpack, dragging the drunken fool up into the air before dropping him on the rooftop and landing seconds later himself. This stopped the groans of pain from his teammate, though sadly it didn't shut him up.

"Fuck you Eddie..."

"Not so concerned about secret identities now are you?" he shot back, still looking around wildly as he thought back to how this mess had started.

He had just been channel surfing, bored out of his mind but not yet tired enough to want to go to bed. He didn't have any college work to do, recent events had made him reluctant to patrol like normal, Johnny was out on a date with some new girl he met, and all of this meant he didn't really have anything to do. He had thought about giving Cassie a call to see if she wanted to hang out, but he knew she would pick up on the fact she was his last resort and that wasn't fair. And obviously Ritchie was never an option, so Eddie resigned himself to a painfully boring but normal night in front of a TV. Of course Ritchie had to ruin that, showing up on the late night news screaming his head off while in a fight with a rich billionaire.

Obviously he had tried to call Johnny, who didn't pick up, and Cassie, whose parents promised to pass on the message, before grabbing his suit and dashing into the sky. As he flew his mind had raced with possibilities, wondering if this was a Wolverine situation, and desperate thoughts as he tried to keep the image of Ritchie in his mind. Not even Cassie really understood the empathic link she had with her three teammates and it wasn't always reliable, but with any luck she will pick up on it and grab Johnny before coming to get them. Eddie flew past buildings and over the busy street below, the sound of a superhuman fight becoming clearer as he headed to where the news report had showed Ritchie. The second he saw Iron Man, a guy who probably fought aliens and cosmic beings at least once a week, firing rays of energy from his palms at the woefully unprepared street level crime fighter, Eddie didn't think. He just aimed his own blasters and started firing, keeping the settings at a safe level so that he wouldn't seriously hurt the other hero if this was a brainwashing situation.

Then he heard Ritchie yelling in a way that was unfortunately familiar while Iron Man, shrugging off the attack with little difficult, announced that Eddie was under arrest.

"Ok, I doubt we've lost him so we should get moving." Eddie said as he looked back at Ritchie, who was standing and leaning against the wall of a roof access.

"Not going."

"Ritchie, have you not been following the news? Do you know what today is?" Eddie asked angrily, marching towards Ritchie who was barely standing upright.

Ritchie tilted his head slightly at the question. "Ricochet's..No, it's yours. Your birthday right?"

"Cassie's birthday is a week from now, which is what I'm guessing you were thinking of." Eddie told him through gritted teeth. "I was referring to the fact that today is the first day of the Superhuman Registration Act. You know, that big life altering thing that made having superpowers and wearing a costume illegal unless you work for the government. The thing we all agreed to be smart about and that we needed to rely on each other to survive. Ringing any bells."

"Some. Maybe."

"Alright then, so what the fuck were you thinking!?"

"Protesting."

"I was..." Richie trailed off and before Eddie could say anything, he had torn off his mask and threw up on the ground near Eddie's feet, bits of vomit spraying onto his boots.

"Fuck. Do you have any water?" Eddie asked as he spat onto the ground and coughed a little, leaning against the wall while Eddie simply stared at him for a moment.

"What were you thinking Ritchie?" he asked simply, more gentle this time. "Like, I know...I know you like to drink, but you've never done anything like this before. Why did you do it?"

The first time Eddie had seen Ritchie drunk was a few days after the mess with Black Marvel, he had been with his wrestling buddies at a bar Johnny had talked Eddie to coming to. He had been more brash than usual and full of himself, but that's just what drinking did to people and given what Eddie knew about jocks he didn't think much of it. But over the last three years there have been other occasions when he would meet Ritchie, and the athlete would be hungover or talk about how he was going out with his friends to a bar. Cassie and Johnny, in the rare times the subject came up, also commented on how sometimes it seemed like Ritchie had been out drinking the night before too often to be just usual college student behaviour. It had unnerved them, made them watch him somewhat hesitantly, but nothing ever really happened. While their respective lives often got in the way of them actually sticking to being a team and sharing patrols like they planned, Ritchie never seemed to be any worse than the rest of them.

Maybe they should have asked about it, in fact based on what has happened they definitely should have at least tried to reach Ritchie and help him. They were very clearly warning signs, but Ritchie always kept them at a distance and never let his guard down. Eddie knew that a lot of his attitude was just a mask, understood that despite everything he said and did he genuinely cared and wanted to help others, but because of whatever it was that happened to him he always kept his guard up and remained on the defensive. Johnny and Cassie honestly had the biggest connections with him, the former maybe because they were both orphans and were fairly well liked by their classmates which made it easier for them to bond while Cassie's psychic thing meant she seemed to understand him a bit better than most, but even they felt it wasn't their place to ask him if something was wrong. So Eddie just never felt he should talk to Ritchie, a guy whose life he has saved and who has saved Eddie's on multiple occasions yet wasn't really a friend despite all these years.

"I..." Ritchie began, his eyes staring into the ground with a conflicted look on his face. However, like it always does, it hardened before he put his mask back on. "It doesn't matter."

"Alright, this is going to be awkward for everyone involved." a voice suddenly spoke up from above before there was a sudden crash from behind, Eddie spinning around to see the famous Armoured Avenger himself while dust and bits of rubble from his landing scattered around him.

"Let's fucking do this." Ritchie growled as he took a step, only to almost collapse to the ground before Eddie grabbed him.

"No offence kid, you're really not in the state to fight a bike thief." Iron Man said as Eddie held onto Ritchie with one arm while aiming his wrist blasters at the hero, who didn't seem bothered at all. "You tried that already, remember? I get you're trying to help your friend and believe me I didn't plan on overhearing your conversation, but if you fire that then this will go more violently than it has to. Just surrender and I promise neither of you will be hurt."

"Will you let us go?" Eddie asked, ignoring slight mumbling from Ritchie insisting that he was fine.

"Can't do that. Not only has your friend knowingly broken the law on the very night the Registration Act was passed, yes I heard that part about protesting, but he's become a good example of why the SRA is necessary. He shouldn't be allowed to get drunk, put on a costume and cause a commotion like this."

Even Ritchie, in his drunken and angry state, fell silent at that as the younger heroes stared at Iron Man in bafflement.

"Ok yes, I'm aware of the hypocrisy." Iron Man said with a sigh, Eddie getting the sense from the tone of his voice that he wasn't proud of that fact. "Not claiming I have the moral high ground in this situation, in fact that's the only reason I'm giving you two a second chance to surrender. I don't know what your friend is going through that caused this, but I have gone through the same problem as him-"

"I don't have a problem!"

"-and I've said that myself, and honestly it doesn't get that much easier. But if you two surrender I swear we can talk this over and I'll do everything I can to help you two, you probably won't even get in any trouble."

Eddie couldn't lie, he was tempted. He honestly wasn't sure what his plan was going to be when it became clear that the SRA was going to become law, he sincerely wanted to talk it through with his friends. Part of him had considered that registering might be the right choice, that he could help more people and maybe make sure that people would be treated fairly. He knew it was a naive idea, but still it was an idea he had considered and right now, as one of the greatest superheroes on the planet offered a peaceful way out, it was an idea that felt even more appealing.

"I'm not doing it. I won't." Ritchie whispered to Eddie, who turned slightly to look at him while keeping his arm pointed at Iron Man.

"Ritchie, we can't beat him. I don't have anything to fight him and he's already proven he can beat you." he whispered back quicky, painfully aware that if they didn't hurry the older hero is likely to run out of patience. "I don't know why you did this, but we -"

"It's too vague. There's no limits on what the government can know about you, how much they can track you. Nothing they can't make you do if they know who you are." Ritchie interrupted him, tearing his eyes away from Iron Man to look straight at Eddie. "It's too much like the mutant registration."

Eddie froze at that, part of him impressed that Ritchie was able to figure out exactly what to say to make Eddie look at the offer in a new light. To make him think of the one person an act like this is likely to affect the most, and the one person who would make him fire at Iron Man. As expected it did little to hurt the other hero, who took the blast and shot into the air to dodge Eddie's next few attempt to blast at him, before diving in their direction with his palms out. Eddie's mind raced as Ritchie, thankfully, began to stand a bit more firmly on his own feet, the young hero wondering how he was going to get out of this when suddenly everything went black the second Iron Man fired his repulse blasts at them.

The next thing Eddie knew, he was in a familiar bedroom while a woman dressed in an all dark black outfit from head to toe took a step back from him and Ritchie. It took Eddie a moment, his brain not fully accepting what had happened as he looked around as if expecting Iron Man to fly out from under Cassie's bed, but when it finally did he let out a small laugh of a relief while Ritchie collapsed onto the bed in exhaustion. Cassie meanwhile took off her mask, an exhausted expression on her face as she looked between the two of them.

"I'm sorry, I just found out what was happening and then I tried to sense you guys, and all I got was confusion and anger and stress. It took me awhile to find you, and when I did I saw Iron Man with the two of you." Cassie explained quickly, almost too quickly for Eddie to get all the words. "I'm sorry. I should have gotten there sooner."

"It's fine Cassie. I'm just really happy you got there when you did, because honestly I had no idea how I was going to get out of that one." Eddie told her with a small smile, though Cassie only frowned in concern.

"Then why did you shoot him? Why was Richie even fighting him, I thought we agreed to talk about this together?"

"I know, I asked him-" Eddie said, stopping for a moment when he heard snoring from Ritchie before continuing. "I asked him the same thing. I don't know if he meant everything he said, but...Well, I guess he's chosen his side on this and so have I."

Cassie grew silent at that, looking at the wall instead of him in deep thought, before sighing as if accepting defeat.

"Then I guess you two decided for me and Johnny as well."

Eddie grew slightly cold at that, those words taking hold of his fears as he wondered if he had just doomed his friends.

Please let me know what you think. So originally A Hornet's Fate was meant to be a bigger idea showing the Slingers dealing with different 2000s comic events, and Hornet saving Prodigy from Iron Man during Civil War was part of that. Also Prodigy having a drinking problem is something I discussed with a friend, as she felt that it didn't seem like a one time thing for Ritchie in the comics which was an idea I liked.