Be Careful Making Wishes in the Dark- Cycle 6
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
As the water rushes into Billy’s lungs, as he coughs and sputters to no avail, he thinks desperately,
No! I don’t want to be alone again!
He fades from consciousness.
Billy’s body falls
falls
falls
Cycle 6: Day One
Teddy’s room in the Kaplan’s house has a textured plaster ceiling, and that is the first thing he sees when he wakes up.
“What?” He bolts upright in bed, going from groggy half-awake to ‘omg-wtf is going on’ in the three seconds it took to recognize ‘this is not where I was’.
Teddy stares blankly at the Fantastic Four poster across from his bed. Sue Storm’s smiling face stares back at him threateningly.
“What?” he repeats.
The last thing he remembers is plunging into the lake after Billy. He managed to reach him, he thinks. Teddy remembers closing a scaly hand around his boyfriend’s arm, but then- nothing.
It’s not like closing his eyes one moment and waking up here the next. It’s that he has no idea what span of time has passed since the last thing he remembers.
In an unfamiliar, possibly dangerous situation, Teddy’s impulse is to check on Billy and regroup.
Billy is fast asleep in his bed, his legs tangled in his sheets. As Teddy eases the door open, Billy turns over, getting dangerously close to the edge of his twin-sized bed.
Teddy shakes him awake before he can fall off.
“Get dressed. Text Kate. We’re getting out of here.”
“Teddy?” Billy asks blearily, “You’re awake?”
“Yeah,” Teddy says shortly.
“No, I mean you’re awake,” Billy says in wonder.
“Yeah, talk later, run now,” Teddy urges, because he’s already lived through this morning once and he does not want to be present in the kitchen this time. To save time, Teddy grabs Billy’s phone as the other boy pulls on pants.
He pulls up contact ‘ Kate ;) ’ and texts “miss u, trouble in nyc, meet behind avngrs mnsn”.
“What are you doing?” Billy asks.
“Getting a ride,” Teddy answers, “You ready?”
A smile blossoms on Billy’s face, “So ready.”
Teddy has climbed in and out of this fire escape dozens of times over the last six months with none of the Kaplans noticing. He is good, quiet, and fast. Mother doesn’t notice they’re gone for at least twenty minutes.
“So when you killed yourself-“ Teddy starts.
“Ugh,” Billy groans, “do we have to talk about this now?”
“-were you trying to end this, or to end, you know, everything?” Teddy asks, and while that was vague as fuck, yes Billy does know.
“I was trying to stop Mother.”
“Billy-“
“I was! I just wanted it to be over and I thought it’d work. I’m not- I wouldn’t have done that, otherwise…. You don’t have to worry.”
“Talk to me when it gets that bad, remember?”
“Yeah,” Billy agrees unenthusiastically, “I know.”
They are silent for several minutes as Teddy focuses on flying.
“So we’re meeting Kate in Central Park?” Billy clarifies.
“Yeah. I hope she brings Noh-Varr, or else we’re screwed.”
“I don’t know,” Billy sounds uneasy, “say we get out of the city. If we don’t get caught, Loki doesn’t come to free us. Without Loki, we can’t counterspell America and Noh-Varr’s parents. We don’t do that, they follow and kill us before we can get away.”
“He followed us into Mother’s dimension. I’m pretty sure he can find us in Central Park,” Teddy responds. It’s a good point, except for the part where he tries to predict Loki.
“Thought you didn’t trust him,” Billy mutters to himself. It’s just loud enough for Teddy to hear over the roar of the wind.
“I don’t need to trust him. He admitted last time that he’s after your power, right? This Loki will still want it, and for that you have to be alive.”
“I could have sworn it was over,” is the last thing Billy says before the reach the part of Central Park directly behind the Avengers mansion. It just figures that it took them about as much time to fly through the city as it took Noh-Varr to fly his spaceship to the same location. Not that Teddy is comparing himself to a spaceship- except the part where he totally is.
“Why is Clint telling me that you’re a bad influence and to let the adults make decisions?” Kate says in greeting. She glances down at her phone. The look on her face would be just as appropriate if the screen had suddenly decided to spew maggots. “Is it brain slugs?” Kate asks, “Because I hate brain slugs.”
“Something like that,” Teddy begins.
“-it’s distance-based, so we need to get out of New York before it catches up,” Billy finishes. Other couples share sentences about movies or vacations or favorite foods. Billy and Teddy share exposition.
“Noh-Varr, do you mind dropping a few of my friends off somewhere far, far away?”
“Oh course, Kate Bishop of Earth,” the Kree replies solemnly. He then throws them a toothy smile, which ruins the effect.
“Cool. Get in, losers!” Kate calls to them gleefully.
Noh-Varr’s ship takes off with no sign of trouble. No parents gathering on the ground.
“This isn’t going to work-“ Billy moans in the background. This is a good sign. When things get really hopeless Billy just shuts down. Complaining is leagues better.
A Norse word rings through the spacecraft. Loki appears. He’s a child again rather than the older-teen from last time.
“Hello!” he chirps, “You’re a difficult man to find, Wiccan!”
Billy honest-to-god facepalms. He’s a dork like that.
“And you were worried he wouldn’t show,” Teddy teases.
“Who the hell- Is what Loki?” Kate asks, and does that Hawkeye thing where she narrows her eyes and assesses for danger.
“I see I am expected,” Loki says with an uncertain smile. He’s probably not used to other people knowing more than him for once. This is about the time that Kate pulls a gun on him.
It’s a Kree gun, all white and grey and green and looking mostly like a Nerf weapon. “He’s in charge of the brain slugs?” Kate guesses.
“Probably not,” Teddy admits, although seeing Loki freaked out over being shot at is a pleasant distraction from mortal peril.
“Definitely not!” Loki agrees, “Totes not! I’m really good now,” he emphasizes. Billy is making an awkward choking sound that is probably laughter.
“That makes little or no sense,” Kate deadpans.
“Incoming!” Noh-Varr warns as something crashes into the ship.
Whoosh! Air rushes into a hole in one side of the cockpit.
Whoosh! Air rushes out the other hole in the cockpit!
Billy is gone. Fuck.
Teddy admits that maybe this would have gone better Billy’s way.
Loki, gripping a seat as if his life depends on it, says “This looks bad, but it is definitely not my fault.”
“Shit,” Teddy curses. Then he jumps, trusting his wings to grow before he hits the ground.
It’s Noh-Varr’s undead father who kidnapped Billy, and Teddy would swear to god that this didn’t happen last time.
An adolescent Skrull hybrid flying on organic wings just can’t keep up with a Kree soldier in a holographic exoskeleton (or whatever), even if the Kree soldier is trying to keep a hold of a flailing wizard simultaneously.
When he isn’t concerned for his boyfriend’s life, Teddy is going to seriously question whether Noh-Varr’s dad is flying through the air through the power of plasma farts, because that’s what it looks like from his vantage point. Teddy is seriously ashamed of being half Kree.
Teddy is losing ground to the Kree. He won’t catch up. He won’t-
He won’t have to.
Miss America swoops down like an avenging angel (or at least like Ms. Marvel) and snatches Billy from the undead parent’s grasp. The ensuing scuffle results in America kicking the guy in the face while Billy just kind of clings to her neck and tries not to fall.
Luckily, the fight slows them all down enough that Teddy manages to catch up.
They don’t defeat Noh-Varr’s father, but America punches him hard enough that he stays down awhile. Billy and Teddy attempt to fill America in as they try to figure out where the ship went.
“Dead parents are coming back because I pissed off an inter-dimensional parasite with a reverse Oedipus complex,” Billy explains, clearly having a lot of practice by this point.
“The plan is: find Noh-Varr’s ship, have Loki do a counterspell, run away,” Teddy adds.
The ship must have landed (or else entered orbit), because there’s no sign on them in the sky.
“There!” Billy leans so far forward to point that America almost drops him. She makes an irritated noise in her throat and hands him to Teddy.
“No magic?” Teddy asks curiously. Usually Billy is perfectly capable of flying under his own power.
“It’s there, it’s just inconsistent,” Billy answers, “I don’t want it to cut out this far up.”
Teddy agrees. Billy would be considerably less attractive as a bloody smear on the ground.
The flash of white Billy spotted turns out to be Noh-Varr’s ship after all. The Kree is sitting on top of it, patting the roof and looking remorseful.
Kate has Loki held up by the front of his shirt and appears to be threatening him. As she notices Teddy and Billy’s return, she puts down the god.
“Everyone alright?” Noh-Varr calls down to them.
“Who’s that?” Kate asks, still glancing back to Loki every few seconds as if he’ll disappear.
“America, Kate. Kate, America.” Teddy gestures from one to the other.
“I didn’t tell you that,” America says suspiciously, which means it’s time to come clean.
“Ok, so we’re stuck in a time loop and we’ve all been through this five times before,” Billy rattles off like a pro.
“That’s not how time travel works,” Kate disputes.
“I’ll lodge that complaint for you when time resets again,” Teddy offers.
“We don’t have time for this, my moms were tailing me here, and you don’t want to be here when they show up,” Miss America warns.
“Loki, can you get rid of the dead parents?” Billy asks.
Loki looks doubtful, “It might be within my abilities, if I had twice the magic or three months to tutor you.”
America looks affronted. “Are you seriously asking Loki for help? He-”
“My power, your knowledge,” Billy clarifies, “can you do it?”
“What did I say in those other timelines?” Loki responds. Billy looks at him grimly. Loki moves his head slightly, as if listening to something, “No, wait. Don’t tell me. I can do it.”
“Great-“ Billy reaches toward Loki. Noh-Varr hits Teddy like a freight train, surprise and Noh-Varr’s military training getting the best of Teddy and allowing the Kree solider to wrestle him to the ground.
“Unless you want to re-enact an intergalactic war, you’ll get off of me,” Teddy hisses at Noh-Varr, who ignores him.
“You’ve got brain slugs,” Kate explains. She’s pushing Billy into the ground with one knee. He went down quick.
“What? No we don’t!”
“You’re babbling nonsense about time travel and you want us to trust Loki. That’s at least as suspicious as Clint’s responsible adult act.”
Teddy imagines that if he and Billy had True Love Telepathy, Billy would be saying “it’s not so easy to survive this, is it?”
Imaginary Billy is an asshole.
“America, you know these things aren’t brain slugs!” Teddy protests to the only person around who hasn’t turned against them (Loki doesn’t count.)
“Doesn’t mean you aren’t brainwashed,” America replies. Billy groans in frustration.
Loki crouches down between the two fallen superheroes.
“You must admit this looks bad,” Loki says casually. America is watching him like a hawk, but she can’t move fast enough to stop him from whispering his teleportation spell.
MJ’S NIGHT CLUB, NEW YORK
Billy and Teddy materialize on the floor without their assailants. Loki stands above them, looking smug.
“No,” Billy breathes.
An employee is asking Loki something, but Teddy is more concerned about Billy, who seems to be having a panic attack in the middle of a night club.
“Breathe Billy,” Teddy reminds him, hovering nearby. He’s torn between the need to comfort him and giving him space. “Do you want to sit down?” Teddy spots an empty table and guides Billy over.
Billy does his breathing exercises.
“Mother will be here any minute, and we just ditched our cavalry,” Billy tells him. “We’re not going to make it.”
They try anyway. Billy loans Loki his power, and for once Loki doesn’t ditch them. He stays and casts his spell, but with only Billy and Teddy channeling the power, they are over-run. One of America’s mothers gets to Loki. The blue magic fizzles out.
Mother catches them.
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
As the water rushes into Billy’s lungs, as he coughs and sputters to no avail, he thinks desperately,
No! I don’t want to be alone again!
He fades from consciousness.
Billy’s body falls
falls
falls
Cycle 6: Day One
Teddy’s room in the Kaplan’s house has a textured plaster ceiling, and that is the first thing he sees when he wakes up.
“What?” He bolts upright in bed, going from groggy half-awake to ‘omg-wtf is going on’ in the three seconds it took to recognize ‘this is not where I was’.
Teddy stares blankly at the Fantastic Four poster across from his bed. Sue Storm’s smiling face stares back at him threateningly.
“What?” he repeats.
The last thing he remembers is plunging into the lake after Billy. He managed to reach him, he thinks. Teddy remembers closing a scaly hand around his boyfriend’s arm, but then- nothing.
It’s not like closing his eyes one moment and waking up here the next. It’s that he has no idea what span of time has passed since the last thing he remembers.
In an unfamiliar, possibly dangerous situation, Teddy’s impulse is to check on Billy and regroup.
Billy is fast asleep in his bed, his legs tangled in his sheets. As Teddy eases the door open, Billy turns over, getting dangerously close to the edge of his twin-sized bed.
Teddy shakes him awake before he can fall off.
“Get dressed. Text Kate. We’re getting out of here.”
“Teddy?” Billy asks blearily, “You’re awake?”
“Yeah,” Teddy says shortly.
“No, I mean you’re awake,” Billy says in wonder.
“Yeah, talk later, run now,” Teddy urges, because he’s already lived through this morning once and he does not want to be present in the kitchen this time. To save time, Teddy grabs Billy’s phone as the other boy pulls on pants.
He pulls up contact ‘ Kate ;) ’ and texts “miss u, trouble in nyc, meet behind avngrs mnsn”.
“What are you doing?” Billy asks.
“Getting a ride,” Teddy answers, “You ready?”
A smile blossoms on Billy’s face, “So ready.”
Teddy has climbed in and out of this fire escape dozens of times over the last six months with none of the Kaplans noticing. He is good, quiet, and fast. Mother doesn’t notice they’re gone for at least twenty minutes.
“So when you killed yourself-“ Teddy starts.
“Ugh,” Billy groans, “do we have to talk about this now?”
“-were you trying to end this, or to end, you know, everything?” Teddy asks, and while that was vague as fuck, yes Billy does know.
“I was trying to stop Mother.”
“Billy-“
“I was! I just wanted it to be over and I thought it’d work. I’m not- I wouldn’t have done that, otherwise…. You don’t have to worry.”
“Talk to me when it gets that bad, remember?”
“Yeah,” Billy agrees unenthusiastically, “I know.”
They are silent for several minutes as Teddy focuses on flying.
“So we’re meeting Kate in Central Park?” Billy clarifies.
“Yeah. I hope she brings Noh-Varr, or else we’re screwed.”
“I don’t know,” Billy sounds uneasy, “say we get out of the city. If we don’t get caught, Loki doesn’t come to free us. Without Loki, we can’t counterspell America and Noh-Varr’s parents. We don’t do that, they follow and kill us before we can get away.”
“He followed us into Mother’s dimension. I’m pretty sure he can find us in Central Park,” Teddy responds. It’s a good point, except for the part where he tries to predict Loki.
“Thought you didn’t trust him,” Billy mutters to himself. It’s just loud enough for Teddy to hear over the roar of the wind.
“I don’t need to trust him. He admitted last time that he’s after your power, right? This Loki will still want it, and for that you have to be alive.”
“I could have sworn it was over,” is the last thing Billy says before the reach the part of Central Park directly behind the Avengers mansion. It just figures that it took them about as much time to fly through the city as it took Noh-Varr to fly his spaceship to the same location. Not that Teddy is comparing himself to a spaceship- except the part where he totally is.
“Why is Clint telling me that you’re a bad influence and to let the adults make decisions?” Kate says in greeting. She glances down at her phone. The look on her face would be just as appropriate if the screen had suddenly decided to spew maggots. “Is it brain slugs?” Kate asks, “Because I hate brain slugs.”
“Something like that,” Teddy begins.
“-it’s distance-based, so we need to get out of New York before it catches up,” Billy finishes. Other couples share sentences about movies or vacations or favorite foods. Billy and Teddy share exposition.
“Noh-Varr, do you mind dropping a few of my friends off somewhere far, far away?”
“Oh course, Kate Bishop of Earth,” the Kree replies solemnly. He then throws them a toothy smile, which ruins the effect.
“Cool. Get in, losers!” Kate calls to them gleefully.
Noh-Varr’s ship takes off with no sign of trouble. No parents gathering on the ground.
“This isn’t going to work-“ Billy moans in the background. This is a good sign. When things get really hopeless Billy just shuts down. Complaining is leagues better.
A Norse word rings through the spacecraft. Loki appears. He’s a child again rather than the older-teen from last time.
“Hello!” he chirps, “You’re a difficult man to find, Wiccan!”
Billy honest-to-god facepalms. He’s a dork like that.
“And you were worried he wouldn’t show,” Teddy teases.
“Who the hell- Is what Loki?” Kate asks, and does that Hawkeye thing where she narrows her eyes and assesses for danger.
“I see I am expected,” Loki says with an uncertain smile. He’s probably not used to other people knowing more than him for once. This is about the time that Kate pulls a gun on him.
It’s a Kree gun, all white and grey and green and looking mostly like a Nerf weapon. “He’s in charge of the brain slugs?” Kate guesses.
“Probably not,” Teddy admits, although seeing Loki freaked out over being shot at is a pleasant distraction from mortal peril.
“Definitely not!” Loki agrees, “Totes not! I’m really good now,” he emphasizes. Billy is making an awkward choking sound that is probably laughter.
“That makes little or no sense,” Kate deadpans.
“Incoming!” Noh-Varr warns as something crashes into the ship.
Whoosh! Air rushes into a hole in one side of the cockpit.
Whoosh! Air rushes out the other hole in the cockpit!
Billy is gone. Fuck.
Teddy admits that maybe this would have gone better Billy’s way.
Loki, gripping a seat as if his life depends on it, says “This looks bad, but it is definitely not my fault.”
“Shit,” Teddy curses. Then he jumps, trusting his wings to grow before he hits the ground.
It’s Noh-Varr’s undead father who kidnapped Billy, and Teddy would swear to god that this didn’t happen last time.
An adolescent Skrull hybrid flying on organic wings just can’t keep up with a Kree soldier in a holographic exoskeleton (or whatever), even if the Kree soldier is trying to keep a hold of a flailing wizard simultaneously.
When he isn’t concerned for his boyfriend’s life, Teddy is going to seriously question whether Noh-Varr’s dad is flying through the air through the power of plasma farts, because that’s what it looks like from his vantage point. Teddy is seriously ashamed of being half Kree.
Teddy is losing ground to the Kree. He won’t catch up. He won’t-
He won’t have to.
Miss America swoops down like an avenging angel (or at least like Ms. Marvel) and snatches Billy from the undead parent’s grasp. The ensuing scuffle results in America kicking the guy in the face while Billy just kind of clings to her neck and tries not to fall.
Luckily, the fight slows them all down enough that Teddy manages to catch up.
They don’t defeat Noh-Varr’s father, but America punches him hard enough that he stays down awhile. Billy and Teddy attempt to fill America in as they try to figure out where the ship went.
“Dead parents are coming back because I pissed off an inter-dimensional parasite with a reverse Oedipus complex,” Billy explains, clearly having a lot of practice by this point.
“The plan is: find Noh-Varr’s ship, have Loki do a counterspell, run away,” Teddy adds.
The ship must have landed (or else entered orbit), because there’s no sign on them in the sky.
“There!” Billy leans so far forward to point that America almost drops him. She makes an irritated noise in her throat and hands him to Teddy.
“No magic?” Teddy asks curiously. Usually Billy is perfectly capable of flying under his own power.
“It’s there, it’s just inconsistent,” Billy answers, “I don’t want it to cut out this far up.”
Teddy agrees. Billy would be considerably less attractive as a bloody smear on the ground.
The flash of white Billy spotted turns out to be Noh-Varr’s ship after all. The Kree is sitting on top of it, patting the roof and looking remorseful.
Kate has Loki held up by the front of his shirt and appears to be threatening him. As she notices Teddy and Billy’s return, she puts down the god.
“Everyone alright?” Noh-Varr calls down to them.
“Who’s that?” Kate asks, still glancing back to Loki every few seconds as if he’ll disappear.
“America, Kate. Kate, America.” Teddy gestures from one to the other.
“I didn’t tell you that,” America says suspiciously, which means it’s time to come clean.
“Ok, so we’re stuck in a time loop and we’ve all been through this five times before,” Billy rattles off like a pro.
“That’s not how time travel works,” Kate disputes.
“I’ll lodge that complaint for you when time resets again,” Teddy offers.
“We don’t have time for this, my moms were tailing me here, and you don’t want to be here when they show up,” Miss America warns.
“Loki, can you get rid of the dead parents?” Billy asks.
Loki looks doubtful, “It might be within my abilities, if I had twice the magic or three months to tutor you.”
America looks affronted. “Are you seriously asking Loki for help? He-”
“My power, your knowledge,” Billy clarifies, “can you do it?”
“What did I say in those other timelines?” Loki responds. Billy looks at him grimly. Loki moves his head slightly, as if listening to something, “No, wait. Don’t tell me. I can do it.”
“Great-“ Billy reaches toward Loki. Noh-Varr hits Teddy like a freight train, surprise and Noh-Varr’s military training getting the best of Teddy and allowing the Kree solider to wrestle him to the ground.
“Unless you want to re-enact an intergalactic war, you’ll get off of me,” Teddy hisses at Noh-Varr, who ignores him.
“You’ve got brain slugs,” Kate explains. She’s pushing Billy into the ground with one knee. He went down quick.
“What? No we don’t!”
“You’re babbling nonsense about time travel and you want us to trust Loki. That’s at least as suspicious as Clint’s responsible adult act.”
Teddy imagines that if he and Billy had True Love Telepathy, Billy would be saying “it’s not so easy to survive this, is it?”
Imaginary Billy is an asshole.
“America, you know these things aren’t brain slugs!” Teddy protests to the only person around who hasn’t turned against them (Loki doesn’t count.)
“Doesn’t mean you aren’t brainwashed,” America replies. Billy groans in frustration.
Loki crouches down between the two fallen superheroes.
“You must admit this looks bad,” Loki says casually. America is watching him like a hawk, but she can’t move fast enough to stop him from whispering his teleportation spell.
MJ’S NIGHT CLUB, NEW YORK
Billy and Teddy materialize on the floor without their assailants. Loki stands above them, looking smug.
“No,” Billy breathes.
An employee is asking Loki something, but Teddy is more concerned about Billy, who seems to be having a panic attack in the middle of a night club.
“Breathe Billy,” Teddy reminds him, hovering nearby. He’s torn between the need to comfort him and giving him space. “Do you want to sit down?” Teddy spots an empty table and guides Billy over.
Billy does his breathing exercises.
“Mother will be here any minute, and we just ditched our cavalry,” Billy tells him. “We’re not going to make it.”
They try anyway. Billy loans Loki his power, and for once Loki doesn’t ditch them. He stays and casts his spell, but with only Billy and Teddy channeling the power, they are over-run. One of America’s mothers gets to Loki. The blue magic fizzles out.
Mother catches them.