Be Careful Making Wishes in the Dark- part 1
Title: Be Careful Making Wishes in the Dark
Fandom: Young Avengers, Loki: Agent of Asgard
Rating: T+
Pairing: Billy/Teddy, Loki/Teddy, Billy/Loki
Warnings: suicide, temporary character death
Summary: Billy has lived this morning too many times. At least he's not alone.
cycle 1 and 2 - cycle 3 - cycle 4 - cycle 5- cycle 6- cycle 7 - cycle 8 - cycle 8 (part 2) - cycle 9 - cycle 9 (part 2) - epilogue
IWISHIWASSOMEONEBETTER
Billy breathed deeply, four counts in and three counts out. His mother - Dr. Rebecca Kaplan, not the Scarlet Witch- said it was supposed to calm you down. Every time Billy had temper tantrums as a child, she’d tell him to breathe like that.
In in in in out out out
IWISHIWASSOMEONEBETTER
In in in in out out out
The muzzle of the gun that pressed against Billy’s chin wasn’t as cold as he expected, the Kree material feeling more like heavy plastic than human metal. His finger curled on the trigger, his mind a cacophony of idontwanttodie, iwantthistobeover, iwishiwassomeonebetter.
The back of Billy’s throat burned. His eyes itched with unshed tears.
IWISHIWASSOMEONEBETTER
No one came to stop him. No other solutions presented themselves.
He didn’t think about what would happen to him when he pulled the trigger of Noh-Varr’s Kree energy pistol. What thought he had spared went along the lives of “Mother will be gone, my friends will be ok.”
Billy pulled the trigger.
Everything became engulfed in yellow light. Then, it exploded.
Billy’s head snapped back and his body fell
fell
fell
CYCLE 2: DAY ONE
Billy’s body hits the ground. His head bounces against the floor and his eyes open in surprise.
He is alive. He has eyes to open. He-
He is in his bedroom in Chelsea. That’s his Dazzler poster on the wall, his comic collection shoved into a corner, his Wiccan costume peeking out of the half-open closet. He is wearing pajamas, and his legs are twisted in his bed sheets as if he has just fallen off his bed, bringing them with him.
“That wasn’t a dream,” Billy whispers to himself, but maybe it could have been- “a vision.”
He’s never had a prophetic vision before, but Billy will be the first person to admit that he has very little idea of how his magic works, or what its limits are.
But if his dream is going to come true, he needs to work fast. Get out of the house, get somewhere unpopulated-?
Billy groans. What use are prophetic dreams if you still have no idea how to beat the villain?
Still, he has to get up. Has to figure out how to break it to his boyfriend that his mom isn’t really back to life. Has to get them both out of the house before Mother manages to capture them again. Has to figure out how to get away from Mother without depending on Loki-
Billy swallows and forces himself to stop thinking. If that spiral of thought continues, he’ll be back to staring out his bedroom window for three months. Gotta stop dwelling, start doing.
Billy creeps out of his room, his feet finding the sturdy places where the floor won’t creek, as if this is another night of sneaking into Teddy’s room. He eases Teddy’s door open, afraid any noise will alert the monster downstairs of his plan.
“Teddy?” And there he was, just as he was in Billy’s dream. Still in bed, but awake. Still hoping that his mother is downstairs- No, Billy urges himself, do it. Tell him. He goes to the side of the bed and sits. “Teddy,” he begins, “I’m sorry. I messed up.”
“I’m not mad,” Teddy replies, turning over to face his boyfriend, “I’m scared. Billy, what if I go downstairs and she’s not there?” Billy shakes his head violently, unsure of how to start.
“She’s not. She isn’t- I messed up. She isn’t your mom.”
“What-“
“We have to go, we have to get away-“ Billy stands up, all nervous energy. Teddy sits up in bed and stares at him.
“If she isn’t my mom, what is she?” Billy just shakes his head jerkily, “wait! Billy, we’re just going to leave your family with her?”
“They’ll be-“ fine? Would they really? Loki assured Billy that his parents would be fine (and who knows how accurate that is), but Billy realizes that he had no idea what Mother will do with his little brothers when they get back from sleep-away camp. He’ll just have to defeat Mother before they get home. “We have to go.”
And Teddy, in a display of exactly why he was the best boyfriend ever, said “Ok Billy, let’s go.”
AVENGERS MANSION, NEW YORK
“We shouldn’t do this, it won’t work,” Billy argues, staring at the mansion instead of looking at his boyfriend.
“Why not?” Teddy asks, but Billy can’t find a way to say ‘because they’ll be possessed by this trans-dimensional parasite that I accidentally freed and oh yeah I know this because it came to me in a dream’, so he stays quiet.
And who knows? Maybe his dream won’t turn out to be 100% accurate. Maybe, Billy thinks as he is buzzed into the home base of the Avengers, the adult superheroes will be able to help this time, maybe knowing what to expect will let us defeat Mother.
It doesn’t.
I’m supposed to be smart, Billy thinks as he sits inside a box of nothing in a pocket dimension controlled by Mother. He settles down to wait for the backstabbing God of Mischief to rescue him.
And rescue him, he does.
“Thanks, I guess,” Billy mutters as he grabbed Loki’s hand, allowing the small boy to pull him up and out of Mother’s prison. Billy isn’t in the mood to chat up the boy who will soon drive him to suicide, but Loki apparently doesn’t need an active partner to carry on a conversation.
“-let’s get your lovely boyfriend and -,” Loki pipes as he kicks open the cell holding Teddy.
“Just get us out of here,” mutters Billy, his voice muffled by Teddy’s shoulder.
“Post haste,” Loki agrees, and says something in ancient Norse. A familiar green light envelopes all three boys, and the nothingness of Mother’s dimension fades away, to be replaced by the bustle of a cheap diner.
“If you would just-“ Loki begins, gesturing to an angry-looking waiter. Billy doesn’t let him finish. He closes his hands around Loki’s face, muffling his voice.
“That’s enough out of you, you backstabbing little jerk,” Billy hisses. “Teddy! Get us out of here; we’re going to give Mother a gift.”
It sounds great like that, but it’s hard to carry two people while one of them held the other’s mouth shut, so Teddy ends up taking over Loki-sitting duty while Billy magic’s them all back to Avengers Mansion.
As soon as Loki’s mouth is free, he yells “No! Billy-“ but by then he has already fallen twenty feet to the ground, and the Stepford Avengers are rushing in.
“I want to be away, I want to be away, Iwanttobeaway,” Billy chants, as Captain America and the Scarlett Witch close in. His head pounds, his eyes begin to glow, his stomach rises like he’s reached the highest point of a rollercoaster-
Then he throws up.
Mother gets him anyway.
The tendrils of Mother’s power aren’t the white of snow or clouds. There is no shadow, no texture, no form to them. They are the white of blank paper, unbleached cloth: empty, but with infinite possibilities (none of them good).
The tendrils engulf Billy and drain him dry.
Billy’s body does limp and falls
falls
falls
CYCLE 3: DAY ONE
Billy’s body hits the ground. His head bounces against the floor and his eyes open in surprise.
He is alive. He has eyes to open. He-
Not a dream. Not a vision. He’s died, twice, and came back to this moment in time.