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selfhelpheroSo, most of Billy's time at home was supposed to be spent with his family, but thankfully, his parents understood that he needed to spend time with his friends too. Especially since they had a very important mission.
"Do you think this counts as stalking?" Billy asked, watching Teddy check the clock on his phone for the umpteenth time as they waited outside Eli's apartment building.
"It's an intervention," Teddy insisted. "He thinks he can't be forgiven for messing up, and he's being stubborn about it."
"Which is a total shock, really," Kate said, smirking from where she was perched against the railing of the apartment building's landing, bouncing rubber bands off the stop sign across the sidewalk.
Billy smirked back at her. "Have I mentioned that you should come visit me at school and meet Hawkeye?"
"Why? So I can take one look at him and burst into tears?" Kate asked. "Unless he's gonna come back with me so he's not dead here? No thanks."
"Anyway," Cassie said sharply, since talking about dead people who weren't her dad wasn't allowed, "it's Eli's own fault that we had to come here. If he'd just answer our texts or our calls--"
"Or Billy's weird emails from school," Teddy suggested.
"Hey! They're not that weird!" He hadn't even mentioned the Umbridge situation, so clearly everyone had gotten off light as of late.
"They're pretty weird, but not as weird as finding you all here."
Eli frowned at the four Young Avengers, who all moved without speaking to stand between him and the front door. It was nice to know that Billy being gone hadn't changed some aspects of teamwork.
"Eli, hey!" Everyone had agreed that if anyone was in the perfect position to throw themselves under the bus here, it was Billy. "I wanted to make sure I saw you while I was home, and everyone said they hadn't seen you in a while either, so--"
"Save it, Billy," Eli said, shaking his head. "You guys shouldn't be here."
Kate frowned, giving Eli a sympathetic look. "We just want to talk. You can't keep avoiding us."
"Like hell I can't. What do you want me to say?" Eli asked. "I lied to you guys. I pretended to be a hero, but I was just drugging myself up."
"The drug might have made you stronger, but you're the one who fought Kang the Conqueror. You're the one who stopped Mr. Hyde, and you're the only one who can lead this team," Kate said emphatically.
Eli sighed, looking down at the ground. "How am I supposed to lead you guys? I don't have any powers."
"So? Neither does Kate!" Cassie piped up.
Cassie might have missed the dirty look Kate shot her, but Billy and Teddy hadn't, and they had to cover their mouths quickly to stifle their snickering.
"It's not about powers," Kate said, but Eli pushed between her and Billy and headed for the door.
"I can't be a Young Avenger anymore. I'm sorry," he said. The look of regret on his face was enough to make Billy start to go after him, but a strangled noise made him stop in his tracks, and the four of them turned around just in time to see Teddy being hoisted in the air by a purple tentacled arm.
"The Super-Skrull?!" Teddy yelled.
"Have no fear, hatchling," the Super-Skrull said. "In the name of the Skrull Empire, I have come to bring you home."
Billy started running spells through his head - would it be better to try to make the Super-Skrull let Teddy go, or attack him? - but Teddy was already taking care of himself. "I hate to break it to you, but I'm not a Skrull. I'm a mutant," he said. His skin turned green as his body grew and his wings unfurled, and the Super-Skrull had no choice but to release his grip.
"That is what you have been programmed to believe, but I promise, you will see the truth," the Super-Skrull said, "once you are freed from your Earthly distractions."
"What are we going to do? We can't fight without blowing our cover," Cassie said.
"Who cares? He's got Teddy!" Eli replied.
That seemed to break Cassie's resolve, and she nodded to Eli. "Not for long," she said, growing enough to reach up and grab at the Super-Skrull. The Super-Skrull snarled at her and burst into flames, making Cassie cry out. "Ow! That hurt!" she yelled, flinging him aside with a force that Billy had no problem with at the moment.
"Eli, get Cassie and Teddy out of here!" Kate said, pulling her bow out from her bag, and Billy barely had time to remark on her being armed to talk to Eli before they were ducking away from a fire blast, and he had to busy himself throwing up a shield instead.
"Kate, he's got all the powers of the Fantastic Four," Cassie said. "You and Billy won't be enough to stop him."
Billy turned around to tell Cassie... something heroic. That it'd be all right, or that she needed to run while they could still get away, but the Super-Skrull's hand clamped down on his arm, and Billy didn't even have enough time for his fanboy encyclopedic brain to remember that the Super-Skrull could hypnotize people too, before everything went dark and fuzzy. He could hear Teddy's voice, distorted and low, like he was listening from underwater--"Let him go, and I'll go with you!"--and then Billy crashed to the ground, released from the Super-Skrull's hold.
Yeah, that was an experience he could stand to not repeat ever.
"Your time among humans has made you weak, young one," the Super-Skrull said with disdain.
"I'm telling you, I'm human. You know, sort of," Teddy insisted, putting himself between the Super-Skrull and Billy as Kate dragged Billy over to her. Billy would have protested, but he was still trying to remember how to breathe. "Besides, aren't you supposed to be the only Skrull with super-strength?"
The Super-Skrull looked at Teddy skeptically. "You possess super-strength?"
Teddy smirked. "Well, I don't like to brag, but..." he said, trailing off before knocking the Super-Skrull into the air.
"Daaamn," Eli remarked, as they all looked up and watched him sail away. "That was some punch."
"I can't even see him, can you?" Kate asked.
"I think that was him that just smashed into the side of that office building," Billy said, and that was cue enough for everyone to move. Proper breathing could come later.
As they headed down to the subway, they agreed to go to Billy's house, since it was the closest, but at the last minute, Eli took off before they could stop him, insisting that it was better for them all to go on without him. Everyone spent the train ride silently scowling, which only got worse when Teddy discovered that his mother wasn't answering her phone.
"Can I ask a terrible question?" Kate said.
"How do I know my mom's not a Skrull?" Teddy replied, staring at his phone as they waited for the elevator inside Billy's building. "Because she's my mom. She sells real estate. She does pilates. She's not a Skrull."
"What about your dad?" Kate asked.
"He died before I was born. Cancer," Teddy said, shaking his head when Kate looked like she regretted asking. "It's okay. My mom said he was a good guy. I should head home and see if she's okay."
"No way," Billy said, grabbing Teddy's arm on his way out of the elevator, like that would have any effect on whether or not Teddy could get away from him. "Home is the first place the Super-Skrull's going to look for you."
"Billy's right," Kate said, following them with Cassie behind her. "We're completely out of our league here. We need to call the Avengers and come up with a plan, and then we can find your mom."
"Or," Billy said, staring into his living room, "you can say hi to her now."
"Mom?" Teddy said with relief, rushing past Billy to hug his mother. "What are you doing here?"
Mrs. Kaplan came out of the kitchen with a tray of tea and cookies, and Billy totally would have kissed her if it wouldn't have been weird to do so in front of his friends. "Teddy's mom called looking for him. She sounded upset, so I invited her over."
"Teddy, what happened to your clothes?" Mrs. Altman asked, putting her hands on the sides of his face as she looked him over.
Teddy sighed. "It's a long story. Are you okay?"
"Of course, I'm fine, but... honey, there's something I have to tell you."
Whatever Mrs. Altman was going to say was interrupted by a rumbling sound, and that was all the warning everyone had before the outer wall of Billy's apartment imploded with a resounding boom.
As everyone fell to the floor, Billy weakly remembered promising Topher that he wouldn't be involved in any explosions while he was visiting home. Damn it.
"There will be no more hiding from me, lad!" the Super-Skrull said, flying outside the gaping hole in the wall--with Eli clutched in his arm. "Come with me, and we will restore the Skrull empire to its former glory... or your friend will die."
"Billy! What's going on?" his mother whispered sharply, clinging to his arm, and Billy was pretty sure he'd never felt worse than he did right now.
"It's okay, Mom. Um, we're super heroes," he said, glancing back and forth quickly between her, Eli, and Teddy. "I meant to tell you, but... look, I'll explain later, but right now's not so good." Oh god oh god, his friends were in trouble and there was a wall missing in his home and he was going to be grounded forever and surely Teddy was going to do something stupid--
"Let Eli go, and I'll come with you," Teddy said.
--Yes, that would be something stupid.
"Teddy, no, you can't!" Mrs. Altman said, but Teddy shrugged her off.
"Mom, it's okay. Once he sees I'm not a Skrull, he'll leave."
"Oh, but you are, hatchling," the Super-Skrull said, raising the hand that wasn't holding Eli in the air. "I will prove it by reverting you to your original form."
A bright red light shot out from the Super-Skrull's hand, and Billy rushed forward to try to pull Teddy and his mother out of the way, but it was too late. The light passed over them like a scanner, but when it was over, nothing had happened to Teddy.
His mother, on the other hand, looked a little different.
"Teddy, I can explain," Mrs. Altman said nervously, standing behind him with the bright green skin of a Skrull.
"This female is not your mother," the Super-Skrull said in a boasting tone. "She is a traitor to her race."
"The Empress ordered me to protect him, even from the likes of you," Mrs. Altman said, pulling a gun from... well, Billy didn't have enough time to notice, because she shot the Super-Skrull, forcing him to drop Eli, and Billy had to grab him and pull him out of the way.
The Super-Skrull snarled at Teddy's mother, and his hand glowed with flame. "Consider your orders terminated," he said, and then there was a shooting fire, and Teddy's mother was engulfed with the blaze.
"Mom!" Teddy screamed. "Billy, do something!"
Billy had a shield around Mrs. Altman before she hit the floor, and all he could do was close his eyes and chant harder than he ever had before. "Iwanthertobeokay. Iwanthertobeokay. Iwanthertobeokay..." The spell had to work. There was no reason for it not to work. This wasn't Fandom. There was nothing weirder here than him, and this was his best friend's mother, no matter who she really was, and she had to be okay, even as the flames began to die and even as she stopped moving, because this was what he did and what good were his powers if he couldn't make her okay?
He didn't stop chanting until he felt Kate's hand on his arm, and even then, she had to pull him back to get him to put his hands down and breathe.
"Billy, let go," she said softly, pressing herself close to him in a hug. "She's gone."
"Um, guys?" Eli said, peering out past the hole in the wall to the startlingly clear city skyline. "So is Teddy."
[Adapted from Young Avengers #9. Warning: contains violence and (secondary) character death.]
"Do you think this counts as stalking?" Billy asked, watching Teddy check the clock on his phone for the umpteenth time as they waited outside Eli's apartment building.
"It's an intervention," Teddy insisted. "He thinks he can't be forgiven for messing up, and he's being stubborn about it."
"Which is a total shock, really," Kate said, smirking from where she was perched against the railing of the apartment building's landing, bouncing rubber bands off the stop sign across the sidewalk.
Billy smirked back at her. "Have I mentioned that you should come visit me at school and meet Hawkeye?"
"Why? So I can take one look at him and burst into tears?" Kate asked. "Unless he's gonna come back with me so he's not dead here? No thanks."
"Anyway," Cassie said sharply, since talking about dead people who weren't her dad wasn't allowed, "it's Eli's own fault that we had to come here. If he'd just answer our texts or our calls--"
"Or Billy's weird emails from school," Teddy suggested.
"Hey! They're not that weird!" He hadn't even mentioned the Umbridge situation, so clearly everyone had gotten off light as of late.
"They're pretty weird, but not as weird as finding you all here."
Eli frowned at the four Young Avengers, who all moved without speaking to stand between him and the front door. It was nice to know that Billy being gone hadn't changed some aspects of teamwork.
"Eli, hey!" Everyone had agreed that if anyone was in the perfect position to throw themselves under the bus here, it was Billy. "I wanted to make sure I saw you while I was home, and everyone said they hadn't seen you in a while either, so--"
"Save it, Billy," Eli said, shaking his head. "You guys shouldn't be here."
Kate frowned, giving Eli a sympathetic look. "We just want to talk. You can't keep avoiding us."
"Like hell I can't. What do you want me to say?" Eli asked. "I lied to you guys. I pretended to be a hero, but I was just drugging myself up."
"The drug might have made you stronger, but you're the one who fought Kang the Conqueror. You're the one who stopped Mr. Hyde, and you're the only one who can lead this team," Kate said emphatically.
Eli sighed, looking down at the ground. "How am I supposed to lead you guys? I don't have any powers."
"So? Neither does Kate!" Cassie piped up.
Cassie might have missed the dirty look Kate shot her, but Billy and Teddy hadn't, and they had to cover their mouths quickly to stifle their snickering.
"It's not about powers," Kate said, but Eli pushed between her and Billy and headed for the door.
"I can't be a Young Avenger anymore. I'm sorry," he said. The look of regret on his face was enough to make Billy start to go after him, but a strangled noise made him stop in his tracks, and the four of them turned around just in time to see Teddy being hoisted in the air by a purple tentacled arm.
"The Super-Skrull?!" Teddy yelled.
"Have no fear, hatchling," the Super-Skrull said. "In the name of the Skrull Empire, I have come to bring you home."
Billy started running spells through his head - would it be better to try to make the Super-Skrull let Teddy go, or attack him? - but Teddy was already taking care of himself. "I hate to break it to you, but I'm not a Skrull. I'm a mutant," he said. His skin turned green as his body grew and his wings unfurled, and the Super-Skrull had no choice but to release his grip.
"That is what you have been programmed to believe, but I promise, you will see the truth," the Super-Skrull said, "once you are freed from your Earthly distractions."
"What are we going to do? We can't fight without blowing our cover," Cassie said.
"Who cares? He's got Teddy!" Eli replied.
That seemed to break Cassie's resolve, and she nodded to Eli. "Not for long," she said, growing enough to reach up and grab at the Super-Skrull. The Super-Skrull snarled at her and burst into flames, making Cassie cry out. "Ow! That hurt!" she yelled, flinging him aside with a force that Billy had no problem with at the moment.
"Eli, get Cassie and Teddy out of here!" Kate said, pulling her bow out from her bag, and Billy barely had time to remark on her being armed to talk to Eli before they were ducking away from a fire blast, and he had to busy himself throwing up a shield instead.
"Kate, he's got all the powers of the Fantastic Four," Cassie said. "You and Billy won't be enough to stop him."
Billy turned around to tell Cassie... something heroic. That it'd be all right, or that she needed to run while they could still get away, but the Super-Skrull's hand clamped down on his arm, and Billy didn't even have enough time for his fanboy encyclopedic brain to remember that the Super-Skrull could hypnotize people too, before everything went dark and fuzzy. He could hear Teddy's voice, distorted and low, like he was listening from underwater--"Let him go, and I'll go with you!"--and then Billy crashed to the ground, released from the Super-Skrull's hold.
Yeah, that was an experience he could stand to not repeat ever.
"Your time among humans has made you weak, young one," the Super-Skrull said with disdain.
"I'm telling you, I'm human. You know, sort of," Teddy insisted, putting himself between the Super-Skrull and Billy as Kate dragged Billy over to her. Billy would have protested, but he was still trying to remember how to breathe. "Besides, aren't you supposed to be the only Skrull with super-strength?"
The Super-Skrull looked at Teddy skeptically. "You possess super-strength?"
Teddy smirked. "Well, I don't like to brag, but..." he said, trailing off before knocking the Super-Skrull into the air.
"Daaamn," Eli remarked, as they all looked up and watched him sail away. "That was some punch."
"I can't even see him, can you?" Kate asked.
"I think that was him that just smashed into the side of that office building," Billy said, and that was cue enough for everyone to move. Proper breathing could come later.
As they headed down to the subway, they agreed to go to Billy's house, since it was the closest, but at the last minute, Eli took off before they could stop him, insisting that it was better for them all to go on without him. Everyone spent the train ride silently scowling, which only got worse when Teddy discovered that his mother wasn't answering her phone.
"Can I ask a terrible question?" Kate said.
"How do I know my mom's not a Skrull?" Teddy replied, staring at his phone as they waited for the elevator inside Billy's building. "Because she's my mom. She sells real estate. She does pilates. She's not a Skrull."
"What about your dad?" Kate asked.
"He died before I was born. Cancer," Teddy said, shaking his head when Kate looked like she regretted asking. "It's okay. My mom said he was a good guy. I should head home and see if she's okay."
"No way," Billy said, grabbing Teddy's arm on his way out of the elevator, like that would have any effect on whether or not Teddy could get away from him. "Home is the first place the Super-Skrull's going to look for you."
"Billy's right," Kate said, following them with Cassie behind her. "We're completely out of our league here. We need to call the Avengers and come up with a plan, and then we can find your mom."
"Or," Billy said, staring into his living room, "you can say hi to her now."
"Mom?" Teddy said with relief, rushing past Billy to hug his mother. "What are you doing here?"
Mrs. Kaplan came out of the kitchen with a tray of tea and cookies, and Billy totally would have kissed her if it wouldn't have been weird to do so in front of his friends. "Teddy's mom called looking for him. She sounded upset, so I invited her over."
"Teddy, what happened to your clothes?" Mrs. Altman asked, putting her hands on the sides of his face as she looked him over.
Teddy sighed. "It's a long story. Are you okay?"
"Of course, I'm fine, but... honey, there's something I have to tell you."
Whatever Mrs. Altman was going to say was interrupted by a rumbling sound, and that was all the warning everyone had before the outer wall of Billy's apartment imploded with a resounding boom.
As everyone fell to the floor, Billy weakly remembered promising Topher that he wouldn't be involved in any explosions while he was visiting home. Damn it.
"There will be no more hiding from me, lad!" the Super-Skrull said, flying outside the gaping hole in the wall--with Eli clutched in his arm. "Come with me, and we will restore the Skrull empire to its former glory... or your friend will die."
"Billy! What's going on?" his mother whispered sharply, clinging to his arm, and Billy was pretty sure he'd never felt worse than he did right now.
"It's okay, Mom. Um, we're super heroes," he said, glancing back and forth quickly between her, Eli, and Teddy. "I meant to tell you, but... look, I'll explain later, but right now's not so good." Oh god oh god, his friends were in trouble and there was a wall missing in his home and he was going to be grounded forever and surely Teddy was going to do something stupid--
"Let Eli go, and I'll come with you," Teddy said.
--Yes, that would be something stupid.
"Teddy, no, you can't!" Mrs. Altman said, but Teddy shrugged her off.
"Mom, it's okay. Once he sees I'm not a Skrull, he'll leave."
"Oh, but you are, hatchling," the Super-Skrull said, raising the hand that wasn't holding Eli in the air. "I will prove it by reverting you to your original form."
A bright red light shot out from the Super-Skrull's hand, and Billy rushed forward to try to pull Teddy and his mother out of the way, but it was too late. The light passed over them like a scanner, but when it was over, nothing had happened to Teddy.
His mother, on the other hand, looked a little different.
"Teddy, I can explain," Mrs. Altman said nervously, standing behind him with the bright green skin of a Skrull.
"This female is not your mother," the Super-Skrull said in a boasting tone. "She is a traitor to her race."
"The Empress ordered me to protect him, even from the likes of you," Mrs. Altman said, pulling a gun from... well, Billy didn't have enough time to notice, because she shot the Super-Skrull, forcing him to drop Eli, and Billy had to grab him and pull him out of the way.
The Super-Skrull snarled at Teddy's mother, and his hand glowed with flame. "Consider your orders terminated," he said, and then there was a shooting fire, and Teddy's mother was engulfed with the blaze.
"Mom!" Teddy screamed. "Billy, do something!"
Billy had a shield around Mrs. Altman before she hit the floor, and all he could do was close his eyes and chant harder than he ever had before. "Iwanthertobeokay. Iwanthertobeokay. Iwanthertobeokay..." The spell had to work. There was no reason for it not to work. This wasn't Fandom. There was nothing weirder here than him, and this was his best friend's mother, no matter who she really was, and she had to be okay, even as the flames began to die and even as she stopped moving, because this was what he did and what good were his powers if he couldn't make her okay?
He didn't stop chanting until he felt Kate's hand on his arm, and even then, she had to pull him back to get him to put his hands down and breathe.
"Billy, let go," she said softly, pressing herself close to him in a hug. "She's gone."
"Um, guys?" Eli said, peering out past the hole in the wall to the startlingly clear city skyline. "So is Teddy."
[Adapted from Young Avengers #9. Warning: contains violence and (secondary) character death.]
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