#just a small little drabble i wrote while rereading ya lmaoo

[shadedrose01]

Equilibrium

Spoilers for Sidekicks (aka issues #1-6 of the Young Avengers comics)!!

Read on ao3 here!

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After coming back, everything feels... weird. Off kilter, as if someone had tipped a perfectly balanced scale and it was teetering back and forth, trying its best to find equilibrium again.

Wrong, like his atoms and molecules had been shaped back together in the wrong spots, in the wrong places, still making Billy but not quite right, not quite normal (or, maybe usual, nothing about Billy is normal). 

He just feels weird, okay? Its not like human beings are supposed to fade out of existence and then reappear back into it, even if those humans are mostly superpowered and/or mutants.

And when he realizes that Iron Lad is gone, seemingly gone back to his own time to fulfill his unforgiving destiny (or not, because they still remember him? Even though they weren't supposed to?), and when the Avengers (when Captain America, Steven Rogers himself) tells them to never put on the suits again or else, Billy just feels worse. Even more wrong.

A team isn't supposed to break up like some boy band (even if they are one person down now), they aren't- they've been through so much together, and now it's all just... going to go away?

He sees Eli walk away, trailing off towards the subway, sees Kate watching them with sad, methodical eyes, like she's trying to figure something out, holds onto Cassies hand as he pulls her up into the hoverboard thing he made with his magic, refuses to look at Teddy, refuses to acknowledge that particular ache in his chest right now, and wonders... is this it? How can this be it?

"It won't be," Cassie huffs as she jumps back down to the ground in front of her house, pushing her hair out of her eyes to glance back up at the two boys. When her gaze meets Billy's, it softens slightly, still determined, still ready. "We'll figure it out, okay? Keep in touch!"

"We will," They both promise, Teddy sounding much more assured than Billy could gather in himself, before they're both flying away, back towards the upper west side, where they both live (a couple of blocks away from each other, they can walk to each others houses, already have a few times while figuring out their powers, when Teddy had scouted out his moms old self help books and they had read them, leaning against each other as they laughed, looking at each other for a little too long before looking away, with rosy cheeks and burning ear tips and-)

When they get to the building that houses Teddy's apartment, Billy lowers them both gently to the ground as the power hoverboard disappears, and then they're just standing there, shuffling, avoiding each others gaze, avoiding a goodbye, avoiding the inevitable-

"Billy-"

"I don't know what I'm going to do." Billy blurts, interrupting accidentally and wincing, glancing up at Teddy (at his messy blond hair falling in front of his baby blues eyes, his perfect cheekbones and jaw oh gosh) in an unspoken apology before looking back to the concrete below him, cracked almost like their team, playing with the ends of his red cape. "These times- this team was all I had, and I thought- I thought we would be friends forever, or at least for a while, and now-"

"We will be," Now its Teddy interrupting, voice calm and gentle like waves crashing against the beach, a hand easing its way onto Billy's arm like its meant to be there, reassuring and soft even as it sends a spark down Billy's back. "Even if we can't-" Teddy glances around, spots people walking past them, and lowers his voice to a whisper, leaning closer. "Even if we can't be superheros anymore, we'll still be friends. We'll always be friends, Billy. Even Captain America can't get rid of that."

Billy looks up again, at Teddy's twinkling gaze and upturned lips, and gives him a faint smile back, even as he longs to take the word "friend" out of Teddy's mouth and smash it into pieces. "And Iron Man? Jessica Jones, the Jewel herself?"

"They don't stand a chance." He promises easily, squeezing Billy's shoulder, and Billy can't help the faint laugh of relief that spills from his lips, before he bites his bottom one and gives him a look.

"I don't know what I'd do without the team." And then, cautiously, his heart beating out of his chest (Is he really going to do this?), as he steps a little closer, their noses almost brushing now. "I don't know what I'd do without you."

Teddys eyes widen, his pupils growing as they flicker between Billy's, and then downwards, towards his lips (wait, is this actually happening, does he-), and then back up, a hand gently (gentle gentle Teddy is always gentle, he loves it about him) grabbing onto his hip as he murmurs shakily, "Please tell me I'm not reading this wrong."

Oh my god, this is happening. "You aren't." Billy breaths back, his hand clenching and unclenching into fists, before he decides screw it, and grabs onto the collar of Teddy's shirt that he shape-shifted into somehow. This is happening. "Am I?"

"No. Can I kiss you?"

"Please do."

Then, they are. And it isn't the sparks flying, tingling, butterflies in his stomach sensation that he thought it would be, that he read about in stories and comics and fanfiction, but its warm, its safe, it's real, and it feels so unbelievably right.

In Teddy's arms, slotted together like they were made for each other, everything shifts back into place.

#young avengers #billy kaplan #teddy altman #wicling #billy kaplan/teddy altman #just a small little drabble i wrote while rereading ya lmaoo