Teddy Altman

Thanksgiving hadn't been something Teddy anticipated celebrating, and even now that he's here, it feels odd. Not just the fact that his jaw is wired shut and he's got a brace on his leg, but the fact that he was invited to Captain America's house and arrived to find the original Cap and Bucky and alternate universe Peggy Carter setting up a pretty impressive Thanksgiving buffet is just so surreal. Steve greets them at the door with a genuine smile and pats Billy on the shoulder and ushers them in to get drinks, and Teddy tells himself he's paranoid and Bucky isn't shooting him and Billy a sideways look warning them off of getting caught making out in any more closets, and then reminds himself that this is real life.

Kind of.

Instead of agonizing over what an appropriate tropical island equivalent of 'nice Holiday sweater' was, he let Billy dress him (also literally, see again: brace) and thinks they made the right call- the house is all warm wood craftsman, and the three heroes already there are dressed casually but nicely, and there are old photos and some pretty incredible drawings hanging up, which distract Teddy and Billy to the point of rudeness, except Steve seems all too glad to tell them stories and answer questions. Bucky chimes in to remind him of details and it's... it's maybe the coolest thing that has ever happened, other than discovering his connection to the Avengers.

It relaxes him, and Teddy types up short phrases and sentences on his iPad when he feels really compelled to contribute, keeps "Happy Thanksgiving" on his clipboard to copy and paste it when new people arrive. It doesn't take more than an hour for a pretty respectable number of people to show up, the chatter growing in volume, and even though it's been a pretty crappy couple of months, and a pretty rough couple of years, Teddy finds himself feeling pretty good.

Teddy hasn't hit his breaking point, because he can't break. Billy depends on him. Even if they're not what they should be, even if Teddy misses them every second of every day, Billy depends on him. He's his best friend, the only person he really knows on the island, at this point, and it's only been twenty days, not even three full weeks. So he hasn't hit his breaking point because that's not an option.

He's waiting for Billy, who went to the Compound to shower and get laundry and maybe food, and Teddy feels bad for not going with and loitering but...

He just needs a minute. He just needs a few minutes alone. Knees draw up and arms crossed over them, he tries to not to lose it, to breathe through the emotions he's been keeping under tightest wraps, but they're still threatening to rip out of him. He's so tired all the time, and he feels so damn lonely.

It had been kind of an awesome month. It's easy to miss New York, miss the other Young Avengers, miss the Kaplans- who had become as real a family to him as they could- and there are days he finds his attention wandering, days he'll wonder about how everything turned out and if everyone was okay. Life on the island, however, has its perks; He'd signed up for classes at the island school, including one taught by Jeff Bridges from Tron; he'd gotten to live like a real cowboy for a month, which had been kind of awesome; and he and Billy's relationship had... progressed, he guesses. They'd been great before, and the way they connect to each other hasn't changed, but... the way they touch has. They live together, and they sleep together, and they have a dog together and thoughts of being with Billy for the long, long term don't make Teddy feel juvenile or naive anymore. Just happy. What he has with Billy is everything he never even knew it was possible to have. Not just the fact that he doesn't have to hide or change who he is, doesn't feel that pressure ever, anymore, but, if he's honest, the sex, too. It's not what he'd imagined sex was, not after hanging out in locker rooms with the basketball team, not after listening to Greg. It's so much better.

The result of all of this is, he sleeps better than he has in a long, long time. His own nightmares almost never wake him up anymore, and when they do, they don't linger. The only nightmares he worries about are Billy's, and it's caused him to form a habit of sleeping a little closer, staying in contact, through the night.

Teddy shifts a little, stretching his back in a small way, turning his head against his pillow. His fingers are curled against Billy's side and, not fully awake, he flattens them against Billy's skin and slides them over his ribs, his spine, until his arm is resting across Billy's lower back. Content, not willing to drag himself the rest of the way to consciousness, he settles down and lets his breathing even out again.

Ten more minutes and then up, let the puppy out, take on the day and handle whatever it has in store.

Teddy likes the island’s new theme about as much as he did Victorian London. It’s cool, the big expansive sky and everyone looking like something out of an old western. The first few days he’d looked more like Marty McFly or Dean from that episode of Supernatural where they hunted down the phoenix, but by the end of the first week he’s rounded up a respectable wardrobe. It’s full of things that are more or less exact replicas of the unlockable outfits in Red Dead Redemption. He’s extremely proud of this fact, but the only person who knows is Billy.

He ventures out from around the back of what can only be described as their homestead, hair still wet from taking an impromptu shower from the water pump, shaking himself dry and pulling on a white cotton shirt with thin red pinstripes. He starts tucking it into his brown trousers, suspenders swinging around his legs, and scans the dusty yard.

“B?”

Billy peers over the wood railing on the upstairs deck, his favorite place to be ever since everything had changed yet again. He’s becoming used to it at least, and it helps that Teddy’s around to be just as into it as Billy tends to be. (Especially for those moments when he decides he wants to dress up as John Marsden in his poncho outfit, and Teddy only nods and helps him pick every piece out.) He makes a face when some desert dust puffs out of the poncho he’s taken to wearing every day, but it smoothes out into a smile when his boots click against the wood and he remembers he’s wearing authentic cowboy boots, with spurs and everything.

He might be a little hot in the poncho, and he still can’t ride a horse, or figure out if the red bandana on his stagecoach hat looks good or not, but it’s all still incredibly awesome to experience. “What’s up?”

Teddy turns and looks up, squinting for a moment into the sun and then smiling, starting to button the shirt up.

“You wanna go into town? Do dinner or something?”

Billy never, ever understood the whole cowboy fantasy, but he’s pretty sure he’s got a thing for them now. Or probably just Teddy, but the whole cowboy thing factors into it a little.

“It’s either that or barbeque some raccoons for dinner,” Billy calls back, grin on his face. “Winchester?”

Teddy laughs easily at that and nods, starting to sling the suspenders up onto his shoulders.

“Winchester sounds good. Want me to try to hail a coach?”

Billy laughs, still enamoured enough with the whole western motif to find that delightful. “Do it!”

Before Teddy can respond, Billy darts back inside, only bringing in his books to dump on the bed before jogging down the stairs, making an almighty racket as he goes. He has a hand on his hat to keep it from falling back as he closes the front door behind him and walks over to Teddy.

His own hat and long taupe leather jacket were hanging on the wooden post that Teddy’s pretty sure is there for them to tie their non-existent horse to, and by the time Billy reaches him he has both on. Adjusting his hat slightly, he leans down to press a kiss to the corner of Billy’s mouth.

“You look great,” he says, before turning and starting for the stretch of packed dirt that marks the road, such as it is.

“I love this poncho,” Billy says, something he hasn’t quite kept a secret about. It’s red and yellow and gaudy and has tassles and he’s pretty sure there’s nothing more awesome out there. Even if Kurt would probably have a heart attack the moment he laid eyes on it. Which Billy has been very careful to not let happen.

He speeds up his gait just enough to keep in time with Teddy’s, and grabs his hand. “I just had a thought. Why haven’t we done the Brokeback Mountain thing yet?”

Teddy almost trips, although his hand stays easily interlocked with Billy’s, and he looks at his boyfriend with a wide, careful gaze. If there’s red in his cheeks, it’s probably just from being outdoors all day.

“C...camping?” he ventures a little unevenly, because what he’s thinking about is not camping.

“That too,” Billy says, grinning up at Teddy as though he has no idea what he’s doing to Teddy. “We might have to fight off a coyote or two, but it could be fun.”

Still blushing, Teddy just smiles a little and nods, pressing another brief kiss closer to BIlly’s temple, more to hide his face than anything. Laughing a little, Teddy stops them at the roadside and lifts his hat to hold it out, and an honest to God stagecoach shimmers out of the dust down the way and heads toward them, like it came out of the sunset. It’s a little creepy, but at the end of the day, Teddy’s used to conveniently appearing NPCs. It’s like living in a video game.

“Sure. Let’s do it. Do we know anyone who camps?”

“Probably a couple of people,” Billy answers, squeezing Teddy’s hand. He pushes his hat back before leaning in to give him a proper kiss, and breaks away when the coach stops in front of them. “But I was thinking just the two of us.”

Teddy opens the coach door and steps up onto, holding his hand down for Billy to take.

“Yeah,” he agrees, smiling down at his boyfriend in a way that borders on a beam.

“Just the two of us sounds right.”

The island still hasn't sunken in, yet, not really. Teddy understands how lucky he is- that he got out of Rapture, that he found Billy, that he has an amazing place to stay- but all the trappings of normalcy throw into sharp relief everything that he's been, however strangely, missing for three days. Fighting for time in the bathroom with Billy's younger brothers in the morning before school, meeting Eli and Cassie and Kate and, yeah, even Tommy to train. The fact that he and Billy are alone so much is amazing- he can touch him whenever he wants, they can ramble on for truly impressive amounts of time over the merits of extended cuts versus the inherent corporate greed involved in their releases, and no one gets annoyed. Billy's bed isn't some Gilligan's Island version of one, and Teddy's slept like the dead for most of two nights in a row. Long nights. Sure, he gets jolted awake once or twice a night by some stab of worry, maybe a nightmare- something that makes him snap to wakefulness and check that Billy's still there. A sense of being disoriented, of not knowing where he is that makes his senses light up and his adrenaline thrum heavy in his head for a few minutes before the sound of Billy's breathing lulls him again. That's kind of normal.

They kiss. A lot. With no interruptions. That is the opposite of normal, and Teddy digs it.

On the third night of his island life, Teddy's still digging it. The bookshelf was kind of a revelation, and out of the stack of things he acquired, he's starting with something called Sleepless by an author whose name he recognizes from some comic books.

It's really sad, but it's really good. At one of it's darker parts, he drops it just far enough that he can look over the tops of the pages at Billy, who's stretched out and intent on his homework.

Adorably intent.

Teddy reaches out with one bare foot and gently digs his big toe into Billy's side.

The red glow that had overtaken the room was starting to hurt Teddy's eyes. It was bright, and pervasive, and it made his temples throb but there was no way in hell he was going to look away: That was Billy in the middle of it. Seeing him beside the Scarlet Witch, their eyes closed and their lips moving in concentration, they really looked like family. Which was good, that was what Billy had wanted, and Teddy wasn't about to nay-say it, only...

Well, only they were in a dungeon in Latveria and Doctor Doom was, at least in part, running the show. Which was concerning. Teddy had concerns. Eli was voicing most of them. As a team, they couldn't afford to be split on this. They had to trust Billy and get through it, and seeing as how 'it' was already going down, that wasn't the kind of thing you interrupted. At least not if you were thinking straight, which Patriot demonstrably was not.

"We can stop them."

"How?" Kate said, ever the voice of reason. Teddy appreciated not being the only one.

"How do you propose we stop the combined powers of Wiccan, the Scarlet Witch, and Doctor Doom?" Patriot was so tense he looked like he was vibrating head to toe, and it made Teddy nervous. Eli was a good leader- a great leader, or else he wouldn't have followed him down the block, let alone into battle, but Eli had a history of making... less than stellar choices when he was feeling especially passionate.

"I don't think we should," Cassie said over Teddy's shoulder, and he felt a sudden spike of relief through the anxiety. This was it, this was the team making a decision, if admittedly not a unanimous one.

"Neither do I," Teddy said, adding his vote, gaze slipping from Eli's distraught expression to Billy's serene one. His eyes were glowing white, he was lost in the magic- or hopefully not lost, exactly, but using it, and keeping anyone else present from taking it over. It was weird- Billy was playing with the A-Listers, now, and Teddy would have been proud if he wasn't so damn worried. Also, apparently, distracted.

"-an incendiary arrow might do the trick," Eli was saying, and Kate was looking practically livid behind the slick dark lenses of her shades as Teddy forced himself to look away from his boyfriend.

"It might also kill them," Kate pointed out, in her how-are-you-this-dumb-and-I-still-like-you tone that she only used with Eli, and then Teddy's heart fell into his stomach because Eli lunged for her bow.

"Then I'll be sure to aim it at Doom."

It was the strangest moment- and it was only a moment, Patriot being able to move as fast as he could. None of them had time to step forward, to grab the arrow back, to stop him. Teddy could feel himself staring in horror like a big, hulking idiot as Eli notched the arrow and let it fly. Billy's eyes, brown again though awash in the red light, slid sideways as it flew.

Toward Wanda.

"No-" Billy said, and Teddy heard the word working its way out of his own throat, even as the red light burst outward, brighter than it had yet been, to the point where it flashed a blinding white.

When it cleared, the room was dark- darker than it had been before the spell had started- and Teddy was alone. He took two halting steps forward, eyes widening, one pale arm outstretched-

Pale. Not green. No armor. Flesh. He had reverted forms- why?

"Billy?" he said, head whipping around.
"Kate? Where.... are.... am... I?" he whispered, as his eyes adjusted and the dilapidated art deco motif of the room came into focus. Not Castle von Doom, then. Probably not Latveria at all, which was a lot of thatched roofs and gothic stonework and tudor cottages. This place had, at one time, been sleek and as sophisticated as the '20s got. Actually, it all looked eerily like a level from Bioshock. He started across the room to a window, two stories high and looking out at what he had thought was a darkened night sky but upon closer examination proved to be dark blue waters. He stood dumbly in front of it, tracking silvery, flat fish as they moved in small schools past him. His gaze caught on a neon sign some distance off, the glow murky. It said FLEET HALL, and there were other signs around it, something for what he was pretty sure said tobacco, although a letter or two had broken and burnt out, but all of which told him he was, in fact, in Rapture.

Which, if he didn't know a mother-son team of magic using reality warpers, he would have said was impossible.

"Okay," he murmured to his ghostly half-reflection, which looked decidedly freaked out and not at all like the pillar of cool, nor calm, nor collectedness that Teddy felt he ought to be, "it's okay. I beat this game in one sitting. I didn't even use a walkthrough. Not a problem." A low metallic groan echoed from somewhere deep in the bowels of whatever building he was currently in, and the hairs on his arm stood up. He wasn't sure why he couldn't transform, and that threw him off, but then, Billy had thought his powers had been gone, too. It was just Doom messing with him. Teddy could handle being messed with. He was a high schooler, for crying out loud.

He just had to find his friends and get out of there, or get the hell out of there and find his friends. Either way, standing still wasn't going to get him anywhere, so he turned from the window and headed into the dark, feeling intensely, vulnerably human, which was something he hadn't really felt for a long time.

It seemed straightforward enough, until he realized he was in the Sander Cohen level, and then thoughts of people with lead pipes in rabbit masks spurred him on. He could hear voices, screams every now and then, but it was mostly quiet. He dug through one hallway's detritus into another's, and stopped when he saw what looked like a security office. He picked up a phone, which had no tone, then picked up the clunkiest, biggest radio he'd ever seen.

He flicked it on, then dropped to a crouch so he was hidden behind the table. Just in case.

"Hello? Is anyone on this frequency? Billy? Eli? Kate? Hello? ...Over?"