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The first morning he wakes up in the Kaplan household with his nose buried in a scrap of black hair so deeply he can barely breathe, Teddy’s first thought is: this is wrong.
Not the position, of course; that’s normal enough. It’s not like he’s never slept beside Billy before, but usually he was awake to know it was happening beforehand, rather than find himself blindsided (not unpleasantly, but even so) by his presence. Blinking wearily as sunlight filtered through the blinds of his window, he lifts himself upright, making it only halfway before he gets stuck. His arm is around Billy’s waist, and the brunette has an iron grip on his wrist, holding him in place.
“B,” he murmurs, bending down so that his mouth is close enough to Billy’s ear so the mage can feel his breath, “It’s morning, come on.”
Billy grunts in a way that sounds half like a snore, releasing Teddy’s hand to grab for the blanket instead, dragging it over his head. A quick glance at the alarm clock beside his bed tells him that it’s early enough to give his boyfriend a bit longer before they have to be up, so he leaves him be for now. Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, Teddy lets his feet sink gently into the carpet of the guest room, hands tightening in the mattress as reality sinks back in.
His parents are dead. All of them. Even the one he hadn’t even known he had.
He’s an alien. A child of war.
“Who do you think they’ll believe? The class president? Or the mutant Skrull?”
“I’m not a Skrull.”
“Don’t tell me. Tell the cops.”
Billy stirs behind him, rolling over on his back, his hand reaching blindly for another body beneath the covers. He mumbles something, but Teddy doesn’t catch it; classic Billy muffle-speech, incoherent and endearing. He wants to let that hand find him, wants to drop back onto the bed and bury himself in that hair again, drown in the feeling and the scent and the warmth of his boyfriend. He doesn’t want to face today. Today means death, and fire, and memories that won’t stop repeating themselves in his mind, over and over again. Watching her die. Hearing her scream. Losing her forever.
Thin fingers brush up against the back of his shirt, and he finds the willpower to rise, silently slipping away. He can’t do this right now.
“Have it your way. Freak.”
Billy’s rambling again, his words an incessant buzz in his ear, one he is both weary of and grateful for. One hand is clasping Teddy’s, sweaty and tense from the nerves he knew they both were feeling with quiet, acute agony, the other gesturing in varying degrees of drama as he works his way through the plot of a book he’s reading. The more he talks, the more Teddy tries to focus on his words to follow it rather than simply think of it as exactly what it is: a distraction. One of futility and desperation, as they sit in the waiting room of the funeral home that had been selected to perform his mother’s cremation.
To finish the job, he tries very hard not to think, but he thinks it anyway, and it doesn’t occur to him that he’s tightening his hand into a fist until Billy cuts off his story with a faint intake of breath that is tinged with pain, and he has to force himself to let go, mumbling an apology. Billy just shifts his hand so that he’s holding Teddy instead, the other lifting to gently rub Teddy’s shoulder. He doesn’t try to continue his story; he’s recognized that the distraction isn’t working, it seems, so continuing would be pointless.
One of the workers at the funeral home approaches them offering water, and Teddy accepts out of politeness, holding it against his knee, staring at the floor as Billy briefly exchanges a greeting with the man until he wanders away. Teddy remembers the worker – he’d met them at the door, offering gentle, sympathetic smiles and condolences before asking them if they’d wanted to witness the cremation.
He’d nearly thrown up, right there on the pristine hallway carpet. I’ve already seen it, he’d wanted to shout, I watched her burn. I couldn’t save her. Billy had intervened before he could do anything he’d later regret (maybe), quietly declining, and they’d been given a room to wait quietly while the Kaplans handled the details of what happened next.
Where she'll end up. Because she's dead.
Something breaks, and he feels a sharp pain in his palm; looking down, he sees the pieces of shattered glass slide from his hand as he loosens his fist, water mixing with blood, diluting it, dragging it down to the floor. So much for pristine.
He still bleeds red.
A tissue is pressed up against the wound, and Teddy glances over as Billy fusses over it, brows furrowed. He’s not holding his hand anymore, but after that little display, Teddy really can’t blame him. Human hands are much more fragile than glass.
“It’s okay,” he protests, his voice somewhat dull. “It’ll heal.”
“Just shut up and hold still,” is Billy’s only response, his tone hushed and borderline frightened, and Teddy holds still, because he can’t think of any other protests to make.
“Freak.”
It’s a huge relief to be back in action, Teddy decides later that day, slamming his fist into the face of one of the Zodiac goons – the bull, Taurus, presumably – and hearing a satisfying crunch of a broken nose. He’s not really the sort of person who enjoys inflicting pain on other people (that’s kind of Tommy’s thing, apparently), but after his mother’s memorial ceremony, after scattering what remained of her body into the wind, he needs this. He needs simplicity, needs the sweet, all-consuming heat of battle to help him escape the reality of what his life could become from here on. He needs to be a hero, to fight, to forget.
Two of these are possible.
Later, he returns to the mansion, alone this time; Billy asks him, hesitantly, if he wants him to stay, but Teddy just smiles – somehow, he keeps smiling – and kisses his cheek, promising to follow him soon enough. He just needs some time. For a moment it seems as if Billy’s going to refuse, but Teddy puts up that wall with his eyes, the one that speaks volumes without actual words- it’s okay. I’m fine. I just need time. And Tommy is rambling too quickly to be understood, trying to drag Billy off, and Kate gives him a shove in the right direction, so finally he caves and lets him be. Before she moves to follow them, Kate rests her hand on Teddy’s shoulder, offering him a smile, but no words. Bless that girl, she understands.
She’s lost her mom, too.
He spends some time in the mansion’s garden, wandering through the collection of statues and memorials, but he keeps coming back to the one he can’t stop thinking about, Captain Marvel. His father. Seeing his face just makes him recall everything he’d ever heard of the man, how it clashes with the face of the one in the photo his mother had given him, the one he’d spoken to as a child, time and again. Trying to get to know someone who wasn’t even there. It feels almost as if he’s lost two parents in a matter of days – his family, and his identity, shattered and reimagined as easily as an editor striking his pen over an author’s fine work. This isn’t good enough, do it over.
He isn’t enough of a freak.
“Teddy?”
He goes still, hands tense and clenched at his sides, and he glances over his shoulder at the voice, eyes widening at who he finds there. Captain America. Cap. What’s he…?
“What are you doing here, son? Where’s the rest of the team?”
Son. Teddy has to bite back a retort, knowing it’s uncharacteristic; that’s something that Eli would say, not him. He can’t help but feel a little touchy about the subject right now, though.
They’re dead. He’s no one’s son, now.
“They went home,” he replies instead, his voice as calm as he can make it. “I just wanted to stay for a little while. “
He listens for the inevitable approach, and isn’t disappointed, waits for the hand on his shoulder and is genuinely surprised when it doesn’t come. Maybe even Cap knows it won’t do any good right now. Instead, the greatest hero in the world moves to stand at his side, chin lifted, arms at his side, and studies the statue of a hero long gone.
“He was a good man,” Cap says, after a prolonged pause, his expression a conflicted mixture of many emotions beneath his mask, emotions that Teddy can’t find words to describe but at the same time makes him feel a sudden kinship with the man. Between time spent frozen in the ice and the years he’s fought beside the heroes of Earth and beyond, he can’t begin to fathom how many friends Cap has had to see die. There really aren’t words for that kind of experience.
He mulls over it for a while, then replies, in a quiet voice, “He was an alien.” Testing, just a little.
Captain America doesn’t respond right away, and when he does, his eyes are on Teddy. “Yes, he was. Does that change anything?”
What doesn’t it change? Teddy wonders, and it must show on his expression, because Cap frowns. “You don’t have to be from Earth to be one of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Mar-Vell proved that much time and again while he was with us.” There it is- the hand on his shoulder, squeezing firmly, the unfathomable strength of a Super Soldier. “And so have you, Hulkling.”
The use of his code name is obviously intentional, and it forces Teddy to look over, lips pursing. He doesn’t feel particularly heroic right now or one of Earth’s Mightiest anything. Except mightiest freak, maybe. Alien. Kree. Skrull. Mutant. Human. Everything and nothing, all at once, the puzzle pieces of his life breaking apart one by one, spilling between his hands, like the glass, like Billy’s hand slipping silently out of his.
He must look angry, or hurt, or distressed at that moment, because Cap withdraws his hand, taking a step back as if to leave him be. Teddy almost allows it, a heavy silence hanging between them. Then, his footfalls soft and hesitant, he moves forward to crouch in front of the statue, his fingers tracing the letters of the dead man’s plaque. Captain Marvel. Alien. Soldier. Avenger. Father. There’s dust and dirt scattered across the stone at his feet, and for a moment, it almost looks like ash.
Mom…
“Will you tell me about him?” he murmurs, his voice nearly lost to the wind, but Cap pauses, turns. Enhanced hearing really is quite useful sometimes.
“…Of course,” is Cap’s answer, surprisingly gentle, and Teddy manages a smile again. He’s getting better at that again.
He misses dinner, but when he arrives at the Kaplan home, no one makes a comment about it, not even Billy’s little brothers, who have never hesitated to tease anyone about their tardiness, primarily because they’re at an age where those kinds of words are amusing to say. Instead, Mrs. Kaplan greets him with a gentle smile that is only a little pitying, a hug he very carefully returns, and an offer to heat up leftovers which he politely declines. She shoos him off in the direction of Billy’s room, and for once doesn’t remind him to keep the door open. He pretends it’s because she trusts them, not because anything they might do behind closed doors is the last thing he needs right now.
Billy is reading a book when Teddy enters the room, and though he looks up and half-sets it aside when he notices the arrival of his boyfriend, Teddy can see that he was reading Lord of the Rings again when he should be doing homework. Return of the King, specifically, and the soundtrack is playing in the background. The Ride of the Rohirrim. It’s a little symbolic, and a smile tugs at Teddy’s lips. Heroes to the rescue.
Noticing the smile that isn't really a smile, Billy pushes the book aside and crawls to the edge of his bed, sliding off to stand up and meet him halfway. “Teddy-“
He doesn’t get a chance to finish; before he can even get a second word out Teddy closes the distance between them, dragging Billy into an embrace that is almost too tight. Almost. He waits to see if Billy flinches or tries to wiggle free, but Billy just stands there, stunned for a long moment before his arms lift to return the hug. His breath is warm and tentative on Teddy’s neck, and it isn’t long before he shifts his head just enough to press his lips against the bare skin between neck and shoulder.
“Teddy,” he tries again, urgent and concerned, but Teddy just pulls back, keeping one arm around his waist, the other hand reaching out to brush his hand over the touchpad of the laptop, finding a new track in Billy’s playlist. There’s a pause, and a gentle twang of a guitar, and then Annie Lennox’s voice.
He turns back to Billy, whose brows are lifted, visibly questioning. Teddy doesn’t answer, though; there aren’t words for this, what he’s feeling, and he’s not sure there ever will be. It’s not like Billy can understand something he hasn’t experienced. But that’s not what he wants, anyway. He doesn’t want understanding, or empathy, or a hand on his shoulder to tell him that everything will be okay someday. He’s pretty sure he already knows that. Time heals all wounds; his mother liked that phrase. He still has a family here, and with the team, and there are good memories, too, ones that might someday drown out the screaming and the fire and the death.
Teddy moves to sit on the bed, taking Billy’s hand and tugging him into his lap, his arms winding comfortably around his waist again. What he needs is this, right here, right now. Nothing else.
He draws in a deep breath, eyes closed, and then smiles. “Well,” he finally says, gazing up at his boyfriend, “I’m back.”
He’d said it to make Billy laugh, but Billy just leans in and kisses him, deep and long and loving, and Teddy knows that he understands this much: that whether it’s true or not, it will be one day.
It will be.