Be Careful Making Wishes in the Dark- Cycle 4
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
Last Time:
The world dissolves from under him
And he falls-
falls
falls
CYCLE 4: 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 hadn’t died, that time. So why is he back here?
Billy takes a deep breath and thinks about what happened the first time around. He thinks about how every time he runs from the house, Mother catches them anyway. He thinks about how Loki always comes for them.
He goes back to sleep.
Some time later, the creak of Teddy easing his bedroom door open rouses him.
“You haven’t gone downstairs yet either, huh?” Teddy asks with a smile. It’s a great smile. Teddy’s lips part slightly, revealing teeth like a Listerine commercial. He has dimples, Billy swears. Actual dimples. “Why are you on the floor?”
Billy realizes that he is, indeed, still on the floor. “Yeah,” he answers vaguely. He’s woken on this floor for three straight days. Something has to change. “Teddy? I have to tell you something weird.”
“I’m an alien hybrid prophesized to save the universe and I’m dating the reincarnated warlock son of the Scarlet Witch, who just brought my dead mom back to life. Lay it on me.”
“I’ve lived through today three times already and I don’t know how to make it stop.” Billy stares into Teddy’s eyes, willing him to believe him. He can’t do this alone again.
“So it’s like-“
“Don’t say Groundhog Day.”
“-any other movie or comic book with time travel. Ok.” Teddy stops for a moment to think. “I- three times, huh?” he asks, sitting down on Billy’s bed.
“Yeah. I get up, we run from a creepy inter-dimensional parasite, we get caught by said inter-dimensional parasite, we get rescued by the reincarnated God of Mischief, and from there… anything I try fails. And we die.”
“Ok slow down. Inter-dimensional parasite?”
“Um, yeah. It’s- that’s not your mom downstairs.” Teddy squeezes his eyes shut and grimaces. There’s an awful sound like a choked sob. He opens his eyes again, and Billy doesn’t mention their newfound wetness.
“Ok,” Teddy says, “Let’s get out of here.”
But of course it can’t be that easy. Mother catches up to them three blocks away, and it’s back into the same old cell in Mother’s creepy not-dimension. Billy idly wonders if he should start drawing tally marks on the wall. He wonders if they’d still be there next cycle. Then he wonders what he’d draw on, considering that all that’s there is nothing. A cell of compressed nothing.
Loki’s foot kicks in the ceiling. He smiles his irreverent little kid smile, so different than Teddy’s and not reassuring at all, and offers Billy a hand up. Billy takes it, and they go find Teddy.
They lasted the longest in the first cycle, so Billy tries to replicate it as closely as possible. They go to the diner that Loki so enjoys (it looks much better than the last time Billy saw it). They fly off to take Loki to Asgardia (with Loki complaining all the way, but Billy won’t explain further than “I want to check something”). When Miss America shows up to save their collective asses, Billy hopes that maybe she’ll know what’s going on, but she just says “I got caught up-“ and then the Amerimoms attack.
Billy had this great plan: he was going to save his magic and try to release it in one big burst in Central Park when he really needed it. Unfortunately, when an angry Jotun is yelling in your face about eating your rescuer, you don’t have much time for strategic thought. It’s natural, automatic to try to teleport Laufey away. Predictably, Billy fails and promptly throws up all over the ground. It’s mostly bile, as Billy forgot to eat today. He wonders when the last time he ate was, and if his body is making the switch with him or just his mind.
It must just be his mind, Billy thinks, or else he’d be headless from the first cycle.
By the time he’s ready to pay attention to the fight, Teddy is grabbing him and lunging for Loki, who says his stupid little Norse word (which is becoming way too familiar at this point), and all four teenagers disappear.
They’re back at the night club from two cycles ago (was it two? They’re getting jumbled in Billy’s brain). The bouncer is staring Billy down, and it is at this point that Billy realizes that he still hasn’t changed out of his pajamas. Awkward, but not his number one concern.
Loki does his magic with IDs while the other teens settle into a booth. Billy wonders if there’s any food to be had, but since he’s actually too young to be here he has no experiences to compare this to.
Billy leans over the table and tries to fill America in before Loki gets back. He knows less about America than about any of the other teens he met today, but he trusts her way more than Loki. In general, Billy figures, the less Loki knows, the better. He manages to get through “this is going to sound weird but I’ve lived through today four times and Mother is going to find us here but we’ll be rescued by some of our friends and I don’t know how to fix this,” before Loki slides into the booth beside them.
America turns to glare at him, and oh yeah, that’s why Billy trusts her.
“Don’t trust him,” she warns the superheroes. Teddy snorts in amusement, like Billy did the first time around. Billy doesn’t find it funny anymore.
“Well yeah,” Teddy says, “Loki.”
Then America repeats the story about how Loki asked for her help in killing Wiccan, and all Billy can think is ‘that little shit,’ which is admittedly a great description of Loki.
Loki protests his innocence and claims he was only using his reputation to convince America to protect Billy, and while that makes sense, it’s clear that the ‘woe is me’ expression on Loki’s face is an act. The problem with Loki, Billy reflects, is that he lies so much that he’s actually forgotten how to act sincere, instead sounding like a kid whining ‘but it really wasn’t me this time!’
Billy should know. Tommy isn’t his only brother.
Loki begins to explain what Mother is and how she controls parents, and Billy tries to pay as much attention as he can. When Loki brings up his Master Plan to borrow Billy’s power, he just laughs bitterly.
“Not a chance.”
Loki looks put out, but before he can put up too much of a fight Mother and her band of parents arrive. Billy knows Kate and Noh-Varr are probably on their way (he must have missed Kate’s text again, where is his phone?). Now all he needs to do is stall for time until they show up.
Loki tries to mutter his spell, but he cuts off half way through and passes out, which Billy didn’t notice the first time. Billy can see what he meant about using magic in that tiny body of his. That makes at least one thing Loki didn’t lie about.
“Loki’s out of commission and my magic isn’t behaving, any ideas?” Billy calls to America and Teddy, who are both taking battle stances to his right and left. America looks guilty and opens her mouth like she wants to say something, but she’s cut off by an attacking parent who quickly turns into goo as America’s fist crashes through its head.
Despite Billy’s foreknowledge, the three heroes (and little Loki) are quickly defeated by Mother and her minions. Billy just hopes they’ve bought enough time. As he’s learned several times over, one little change can mean death for himself and his friends.
As Mother descends on him, Billy thinks, this is the end. Billy’s vision whites out.
But he doesn’t fall.
When he wakes up, it isn’t to a headache on his bedroom floor. Instead, he’s tied to the other three teens, trapped in the middle of the dancefloor as Mother says some creepy stuff about eating them or absorbing them or some such thing. Billy, who was stricken by this speech the first time, instead directs his attention to the windows, because this is the moment Noh-Varr and Kate arrive.
It isn’t Noh-Varr’s ruthless efficiency that surprises Billy, because of course he’s witnessed that first hand when Noh-Varr was brainwashed and attacking them. It’s his style that’s a surprise. He’s all jumps and backflips and- did he just stop to put on some music?
Then of course, Noh-Varr jumps through a hole in the wall and lands on top of his alien spaceship before turning around to deliver the line “Come with me if you want to be awesome.” Clearly Kate knows how to pick ‘em.
All six of them pile into Noh-Varr‘s ship and take off. Billy screams “higher, higher! We need to get out of the city!” because he is so close surviving; he can’t let this be the end.
“I’m trying,” Noh-Varr growls, “but it’s a bit difficult to fly with people jumping on my ship!”
“Get away from bystanders,” Kate suggests, and someone else decides on Central Park.
“No,” Billy protests, “That’s too close, they’ll find us,” but he’s overruled and ignored.
As they land the ship, Billy gets increasingly twitchy. This is the longest he’s survived since the first cycle, but he hasn’t thought of a way out yet. Telling Teddy and America hadn’t particularly helped. He is going to die, again, in sight of the Avengers Mansion. This is his life.
The Mother-construct of Noh-Varr’s dad crashes through the ship and grabs him. Billy struggles and tries his best to bash the guy’s head in, but one unarmed human can’t do much against an adult Kree in some kind of insect-themed exoskeleton. Flying through New York under the arm of an evil kidnapping dead parent is much different than flying under his own power, and if Billy had eaten anything that day he might have thrown up again.
America manages to grab him back after a quick aerial fight, and Billy thinks it might has gone faster this time than the first time. Or maybe he’s spacing out due to lack of sleep and food.
They return to the ship, and it’s time for Billy to face the music. Loki is entirely too chipper as he reiterates his plan to borrow Billy’s power to stop Mother. When that’s struck down, Loki says triumphantly, “Kill Master Kaplan! It’s his power. Kill him and this all stops.” Teddy and America practically scream “NO” at the little god.
“Got a plan C?” Billy asks with little hope. Loki seems to think for a bit, then suggests tentatively, “we all die?”
Billy looks around at the people surrounding him. Teddy, his boyfriend. Kate, one of his best friends, Noh-Varr, an enemy-turned-ally, and America, his…mysterious protector? Whatever. The thing is, Billy is very, very tired. What choice is there?
So when Loki saunters up and whispers “Do you want your boyfriend to have to snap your neck to save everyone’s lives?”
Billy answers “no.” and lends Loki his power.
Predictably, as he has several time before, Loki disappears. The others give Billy variations of the same sad, disappointed look. Then they turn toward the approaching enemies, leaving Billy an opening to sneak away.
He could stay with his friends and die in the coming battle against Mother, but Billy really can’t bear to see Teddy or Kate fall before him. Not again. Hell, this is why they stopped being superheroes in the first place.
“I wish I was someone better.”
So instead Billy cradles the Kree energy gun in his hands and wonders what will happen if he doesn’t pull the trigger.
And suddenly, he finds out.
Loki smacks the gun from his hands.
Loki, who a moment before was nowhere to be found, is now here, in this ship, preventing Billy from shooting himself.
“Plan A before Plan B, Billy,” Loki says, and for the first time Billy thinks he hears genuine emotion in Loki’s voice instead of childlike glee or feigned humility. He thinks he hears regret.
But that can’t be right, because Loki is the backstabbing God of Lies who- who-
who came back to save Billy. Who came back even when he’d already gotten his claws into Billy’s power. Who came back when no one expected him to, when there was nothing to be gained.
This doesn’t make any sense.
“Now come on, we have to save the day!” Loki proclaims in that chipper way of his, and Billy finds himself following Loki onto the battlefield. Loki quickly throws up a spell circle, and Billy watches as energy from the circle shoots out to supercharge each of his friends. As he watches, America’s punches go from effective to explosive and Kate’s bow goes from shooting lasers to wide streams of energy.
“What’s happening?” America yells as she continues to beat back parents, seemingly more interested in punching than in an answer.
From where he is floating above Central Park, Loki replies, “I am. Famously so.”
It really looks like they’ll save the day. It looks like they’ll survive and defeat Mother and finally be able to see the next day. Billy can’t believe it. After so long trapped in cycles, it seems too good to be true.
And it is. Loki slumps to the ground in an exhausted heap. Teddy grabs him before following the other teens back into the ship. Noh-Varr delivers the bad news: the engines are down. They can’t take off.
“How can we refuel?” Teddy asks urgently, but the answer- that Kirby engines run on belief- is so nonsensical that Billy can’t process it.
Teddy takes Billy’s hand in his and squeezes. This is so unbelievable, Billy thinks.
Mother’s forces overwhelm them.
Mother’s power engulfs him one more, draining him of everything that he is.
Billy’s body goes limp and falls
falls
falls
CYCLE 5: 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-
Billy clenches his fists. He was so close.
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
Last Time:
The world dissolves from under him
And he falls-
falls
falls
CYCLE 4: 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 hadn’t died, that time. So why is he back here?
Billy takes a deep breath and thinks about what happened the first time around. He thinks about how every time he runs from the house, Mother catches them anyway. He thinks about how Loki always comes for them.
He goes back to sleep.
Some time later, the creak of Teddy easing his bedroom door open rouses him.
“You haven’t gone downstairs yet either, huh?” Teddy asks with a smile. It’s a great smile. Teddy’s lips part slightly, revealing teeth like a Listerine commercial. He has dimples, Billy swears. Actual dimples. “Why are you on the floor?”
Billy realizes that he is, indeed, still on the floor. “Yeah,” he answers vaguely. He’s woken on this floor for three straight days. Something has to change. “Teddy? I have to tell you something weird.”
“I’m an alien hybrid prophesized to save the universe and I’m dating the reincarnated warlock son of the Scarlet Witch, who just brought my dead mom back to life. Lay it on me.”
“I’ve lived through today three times already and I don’t know how to make it stop.” Billy stares into Teddy’s eyes, willing him to believe him. He can’t do this alone again.
“So it’s like-“
“Don’t say Groundhog Day.”
“-any other movie or comic book with time travel. Ok.” Teddy stops for a moment to think. “I- three times, huh?” he asks, sitting down on Billy’s bed.
“Yeah. I get up, we run from a creepy inter-dimensional parasite, we get caught by said inter-dimensional parasite, we get rescued by the reincarnated God of Mischief, and from there… anything I try fails. And we die.”
“Ok slow down. Inter-dimensional parasite?”
“Um, yeah. It’s- that’s not your mom downstairs.” Teddy squeezes his eyes shut and grimaces. There’s an awful sound like a choked sob. He opens his eyes again, and Billy doesn’t mention their newfound wetness.
“Ok,” Teddy says, “Let’s get out of here.”
But of course it can’t be that easy. Mother catches up to them three blocks away, and it’s back into the same old cell in Mother’s creepy not-dimension. Billy idly wonders if he should start drawing tally marks on the wall. He wonders if they’d still be there next cycle. Then he wonders what he’d draw on, considering that all that’s there is nothing. A cell of compressed nothing.
Loki’s foot kicks in the ceiling. He smiles his irreverent little kid smile, so different than Teddy’s and not reassuring at all, and offers Billy a hand up. Billy takes it, and they go find Teddy.
They lasted the longest in the first cycle, so Billy tries to replicate it as closely as possible. They go to the diner that Loki so enjoys (it looks much better than the last time Billy saw it). They fly off to take Loki to Asgardia (with Loki complaining all the way, but Billy won’t explain further than “I want to check something”). When Miss America shows up to save their collective asses, Billy hopes that maybe she’ll know what’s going on, but she just says “I got caught up-“ and then the Amerimoms attack.
Billy had this great plan: he was going to save his magic and try to release it in one big burst in Central Park when he really needed it. Unfortunately, when an angry Jotun is yelling in your face about eating your rescuer, you don’t have much time for strategic thought. It’s natural, automatic to try to teleport Laufey away. Predictably, Billy fails and promptly throws up all over the ground. It’s mostly bile, as Billy forgot to eat today. He wonders when the last time he ate was, and if his body is making the switch with him or just his mind.
It must just be his mind, Billy thinks, or else he’d be headless from the first cycle.
By the time he’s ready to pay attention to the fight, Teddy is grabbing him and lunging for Loki, who says his stupid little Norse word (which is becoming way too familiar at this point), and all four teenagers disappear.
They’re back at the night club from two cycles ago (was it two? They’re getting jumbled in Billy’s brain). The bouncer is staring Billy down, and it is at this point that Billy realizes that he still hasn’t changed out of his pajamas. Awkward, but not his number one concern.
Loki does his magic with IDs while the other teens settle into a booth. Billy wonders if there’s any food to be had, but since he’s actually too young to be here he has no experiences to compare this to.
Billy leans over the table and tries to fill America in before Loki gets back. He knows less about America than about any of the other teens he met today, but he trusts her way more than Loki. In general, Billy figures, the less Loki knows, the better. He manages to get through “this is going to sound weird but I’ve lived through today four times and Mother is going to find us here but we’ll be rescued by some of our friends and I don’t know how to fix this,” before Loki slides into the booth beside them.
America turns to glare at him, and oh yeah, that’s why Billy trusts her.
“Don’t trust him,” she warns the superheroes. Teddy snorts in amusement, like Billy did the first time around. Billy doesn’t find it funny anymore.
“Well yeah,” Teddy says, “Loki.”
Then America repeats the story about how Loki asked for her help in killing Wiccan, and all Billy can think is ‘that little shit,’ which is admittedly a great description of Loki.
Loki protests his innocence and claims he was only using his reputation to convince America to protect Billy, and while that makes sense, it’s clear that the ‘woe is me’ expression on Loki’s face is an act. The problem with Loki, Billy reflects, is that he lies so much that he’s actually forgotten how to act sincere, instead sounding like a kid whining ‘but it really wasn’t me this time!’
Billy should know. Tommy isn’t his only brother.
Loki begins to explain what Mother is and how she controls parents, and Billy tries to pay as much attention as he can. When Loki brings up his Master Plan to borrow Billy’s power, he just laughs bitterly.
“Not a chance.”
Loki looks put out, but before he can put up too much of a fight Mother and her band of parents arrive. Billy knows Kate and Noh-Varr are probably on their way (he must have missed Kate’s text again, where is his phone?). Now all he needs to do is stall for time until they show up.
Loki tries to mutter his spell, but he cuts off half way through and passes out, which Billy didn’t notice the first time. Billy can see what he meant about using magic in that tiny body of his. That makes at least one thing Loki didn’t lie about.
“Loki’s out of commission and my magic isn’t behaving, any ideas?” Billy calls to America and Teddy, who are both taking battle stances to his right and left. America looks guilty and opens her mouth like she wants to say something, but she’s cut off by an attacking parent who quickly turns into goo as America’s fist crashes through its head.
Despite Billy’s foreknowledge, the three heroes (and little Loki) are quickly defeated by Mother and her minions. Billy just hopes they’ve bought enough time. As he’s learned several times over, one little change can mean death for himself and his friends.
As Mother descends on him, Billy thinks, this is the end. Billy’s vision whites out.
But he doesn’t fall.
When he wakes up, it isn’t to a headache on his bedroom floor. Instead, he’s tied to the other three teens, trapped in the middle of the dancefloor as Mother says some creepy stuff about eating them or absorbing them or some such thing. Billy, who was stricken by this speech the first time, instead directs his attention to the windows, because this is the moment Noh-Varr and Kate arrive.
It isn’t Noh-Varr’s ruthless efficiency that surprises Billy, because of course he’s witnessed that first hand when Noh-Varr was brainwashed and attacking them. It’s his style that’s a surprise. He’s all jumps and backflips and- did he just stop to put on some music?
Then of course, Noh-Varr jumps through a hole in the wall and lands on top of his alien spaceship before turning around to deliver the line “Come with me if you want to be awesome.” Clearly Kate knows how to pick ‘em.
All six of them pile into Noh-Varr‘s ship and take off. Billy screams “higher, higher! We need to get out of the city!” because he is so close surviving; he can’t let this be the end.
“I’m trying,” Noh-Varr growls, “but it’s a bit difficult to fly with people jumping on my ship!”
“Get away from bystanders,” Kate suggests, and someone else decides on Central Park.
“No,” Billy protests, “That’s too close, they’ll find us,” but he’s overruled and ignored.
As they land the ship, Billy gets increasingly twitchy. This is the longest he’s survived since the first cycle, but he hasn’t thought of a way out yet. Telling Teddy and America hadn’t particularly helped. He is going to die, again, in sight of the Avengers Mansion. This is his life.
The Mother-construct of Noh-Varr’s dad crashes through the ship and grabs him. Billy struggles and tries his best to bash the guy’s head in, but one unarmed human can’t do much against an adult Kree in some kind of insect-themed exoskeleton. Flying through New York under the arm of an evil kidnapping dead parent is much different than flying under his own power, and if Billy had eaten anything that day he might have thrown up again.
America manages to grab him back after a quick aerial fight, and Billy thinks it might has gone faster this time than the first time. Or maybe he’s spacing out due to lack of sleep and food.
They return to the ship, and it’s time for Billy to face the music. Loki is entirely too chipper as he reiterates his plan to borrow Billy’s power to stop Mother. When that’s struck down, Loki says triumphantly, “Kill Master Kaplan! It’s his power. Kill him and this all stops.” Teddy and America practically scream “NO” at the little god.
“Got a plan C?” Billy asks with little hope. Loki seems to think for a bit, then suggests tentatively, “we all die?”
Billy looks around at the people surrounding him. Teddy, his boyfriend. Kate, one of his best friends, Noh-Varr, an enemy-turned-ally, and America, his…mysterious protector? Whatever. The thing is, Billy is very, very tired. What choice is there?
So when Loki saunters up and whispers “Do you want your boyfriend to have to snap your neck to save everyone’s lives?”
Billy answers “no.” and lends Loki his power.
Predictably, as he has several time before, Loki disappears. The others give Billy variations of the same sad, disappointed look. Then they turn toward the approaching enemies, leaving Billy an opening to sneak away.
He could stay with his friends and die in the coming battle against Mother, but Billy really can’t bear to see Teddy or Kate fall before him. Not again. Hell, this is why they stopped being superheroes in the first place.
“I wish I was someone better.”
So instead Billy cradles the Kree energy gun in his hands and wonders what will happen if he doesn’t pull the trigger.
And suddenly, he finds out.
Loki smacks the gun from his hands.
Loki, who a moment before was nowhere to be found, is now here, in this ship, preventing Billy from shooting himself.
“Plan A before Plan B, Billy,” Loki says, and for the first time Billy thinks he hears genuine emotion in Loki’s voice instead of childlike glee or feigned humility. He thinks he hears regret.
But that can’t be right, because Loki is the backstabbing God of Lies who- who-
who came back to save Billy. Who came back even when he’d already gotten his claws into Billy’s power. Who came back when no one expected him to, when there was nothing to be gained.
This doesn’t make any sense.
“Now come on, we have to save the day!” Loki proclaims in that chipper way of his, and Billy finds himself following Loki onto the battlefield. Loki quickly throws up a spell circle, and Billy watches as energy from the circle shoots out to supercharge each of his friends. As he watches, America’s punches go from effective to explosive and Kate’s bow goes from shooting lasers to wide streams of energy.
“What’s happening?” America yells as she continues to beat back parents, seemingly more interested in punching than in an answer.
From where he is floating above Central Park, Loki replies, “I am. Famously so.”
It really looks like they’ll save the day. It looks like they’ll survive and defeat Mother and finally be able to see the next day. Billy can’t believe it. After so long trapped in cycles, it seems too good to be true.
And it is. Loki slumps to the ground in an exhausted heap. Teddy grabs him before following the other teens back into the ship. Noh-Varr delivers the bad news: the engines are down. They can’t take off.
“How can we refuel?” Teddy asks urgently, but the answer- that Kirby engines run on belief- is so nonsensical that Billy can’t process it.
Teddy takes Billy’s hand in his and squeezes. This is so unbelievable, Billy thinks.
Mother’s forces overwhelm them.
Mother’s power engulfs him one more, draining him of everything that he is.
Billy’s body goes limp and falls
falls
falls
CYCLE 5: 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-
Billy clenches his fists. He was so close.