We're fanboys, aren't we?

This schedule, as well as the schedule that Teddy had prepared for himself had made it very hard for the two boys to see each other. Which was disappointing to say the least. He missed having goofy conversations with Teddy and playing video games. So he had busied himself with more running and bringing Cooper along, just to burn his energy out. 

However that morning - Billy’s rest day - he woke up to a note on Teddy’s pillow. Confused as hell, he read it and grinned. A date night at their favorite diner sounded like something they really needed right now. So he got himself out of bed, and getting himself ready for the day. He was excited to go, so he ended up being ready hours before. 

And then someone else was walking close to their table. “Teddy! Dude!” He stood up from the booth and pulled the teen into a bro-hug, patting him on the back. “Long time no see, man. What are you up to.” He was about to agree to the catching up when Billy walked in. “Why don’t you guys join us. Impromptu double date. Hell yeah.”

So of course someone had to come along and ruin things, and not just any someone. Sam glared balefully from under dark brows at the blond who insinuated himself into their peaceful reunion. “Teddy.” He said the greeting like a curse, scowling openly as Bobby welcomed him. “Wait, what? No!” He sat up, scrunching his face in distaste. A double date? Now? With him?! How could something go from perfect to the worst thing of all time so quickly?

“Yeah, okay, so this is happening.” He sighed, resigned to the fact that Billy and Bobby were evil boyfriends. The only fact that made him feel slightly better was knowing that Sam would be as miserable as he was. Teddy couldn’t hold back a snort at the Nova’s bragging. “You’re probably better known for running into things, right?” He’d seen firsthand how clumsy the guy could be, it was a fair guess! Expecting Billy's silent reprimand, Teddy tensed up a bit. It wouldn't be nearly as fun making fun of Sam if Billy was going to pout every time.

The sunlight streamed into the room through the gap between the curtains, falling directly onto the face of the sleeping blonde. She frowned in her sleep, mumbling under her breath, as she held her hand up groggily as if hoping to block out the sunlight. For the next few minutes it was absolute silence as the blonde slept on, but her blissful slumber was cut off rudely by the shrill sound of an alarm clock. 

Cassie groaned as she gropped for her clock, hoping to hit the snooze button and sleeping in. She frowned, her hand still over her eyes as her hand met empty air. She let her hand fall with a groan once she realised where her clock actually was. Both her friends had suggested that she put her clock across the room where she had to get up and turn the alarm off. It was the oldest trick in the book but it was effective. Muttering obscenities under her breath Cassie kicked the covers off of her as she stretched, the alarm clock still ringing relentlessly. Flinging her legs off the bed she staggered over to her dresser and turned the annoying thing off. The silence was like a blessing. Which was immediately cut off again but this time due to a pup yapping and barking right outside her door. Running a hand through her disheveled hair, Cassie shuffled over to the door and opened it. The dog satisfied that the girl was awake stopped barking. Giving a short happy yap Coop, turned around and padded off towards the kitchen. The teen could hear the clang of a frying pan as someone placed it on the stove. Quickly walking back into her room she quickly went through her morning routine and pulled on a tank top and jeans. Pulling her hair into its signature ponytail, she walked out of her room and into the kitchen.

That logic, though airtight in his brain, didn’t work in reality, and five minutes later, his alarm was singing again. But now, Cooper was barking at it as if the rectangular piece of technology had eaten his dinner. Sighing heavily, Billy sat up in bed, kissed Teddy’s cheek and scratched Cooper behind the ears before rolling out of bed and pulling a sweatshirt on over his bare chest and righting the sweatpants that he was wearing that were way too big on him as he made his way into the bathroom. He didn’t even bother trying to comb his hair. It was a disaster, it was never not going to be a disaster. 

After doing everything he needed to in the bathroom he walked back into the bedroom, reaching across the bed to get his glasses before complying to the puppy who was rubbing against his calf and walking down the stairs and opening the sliding back door to the balcony with the yard that Billy may or may not have zapped there. As Cooper ran towards his favorite tree to pee on, Billy went to the kitchen, pouring food into his dog’s bowl as well as water in the other. After making sure Cooper had his breakfast he went to work on the humans of the house. 

Making pancakes seemed like the best thing to do today. By the time Billy was mixing ingredients Cooper had meandered back in, and instead of going for the food, he trotted his way up the stairs. Hm, he was probably pissed that the other two people in the house weren’t up yet to give him more attention. Chuckling at that though, Billy started making pancakes as well as zapping some fruit onto the counter and ‘wishing’ that it would cut itself - which it almost instantly started to do. 

Once he got back he took a shower and threw on the shorts and cut off shirt that were lying in the clean clothes pile. Neither Billy nor Cassie’s alarms had gone off yet, and while Cooper had demanded a pet when he saw him even the dog realized it was too early to be awake. Teddy crawled back into his bed and curled up around Billy, determined to sleep for another hour and pretend that he hadn’t been up at an ungodly hour. It usually worked and left him the rest of his day to do whatever he wanted. Or stop whatever bad guy decided to try out his latest plan.

Teddy barely acknowledged Billy’s alarm going off or the rapid barking of Cooper. Instead of joining his friends in the land of the living, he pulled the pillow Billy had been using over his head and buried under the blankets more. It’s only when Cooper nudges the door open and moves the pillow to lick at his face that he finally catches the scent of pancakes being made. The promise of food is enough for him to scoop up Cooper, roll out of bed, and sluggishly make his way to the kitchen.

“I didn’t do anything.” He muttered, pushing the Young Avenger away to sway back to his own feet. “I didn’t even get near his stupid embassy, all I did was a fly by and they came after me. It wasn’t my fault this time, I swear.” Okay, maybe not entirely true, but mostly. He hadn’t been looking for a fight and even he had realized going up against Doom alone was a bad idea. If he was really going to try and capture one of the world’s most notorious supervillains, he’d bring his whole team to storm Latveria instead of taking pot shots at the Latverian embassy in New York.

The Nova kicked off the ground, blue light flickering pale around him as he hovered a foot from the ground. “Just stay out of my way, dude. No one asked for your help with this.” Hulkling might had saved his butt, but there was no way his pride was going to allow him to admit that. Gritting his teeth, he hoped the helmet was listening to him for once and braced himself for the blast. The metal tentacles lashed out and Sam caught the flailing appendage that crackled with electricity. He absorbed the energy, ignoring the buzzing in his head and channeled it back, releasing the pent up lightning in an amplified blast that fried circuits and sent the machines flying.

“Actually, you did ask for help.” The shifter let out a groan of frustration and flew into the air to move away from the blue glow now surrounding Nova. Last time he saw that light a warehouse caved in. “You sent out a help signal to the Avengers, which I’m a part of. A little thanks would be nice, seeing as I saved your ass twice now.” The blonde’s eyes widened as Nova somehow used the weird tentacle things energy against itself. “Okay, seriously. Why didn’t you just do that before? This could have been done ages ago!”

Figuring that Sam wasn’t going to get himself nearly killed again, Teddy focused on the fight. He kept calling out his scores, each of them upping the other only to be beaten not long after. But as much fun as it was to rip robots apart and snark with someone who was barely an ally, Teddy really wanted this fight to end.

Elysius had broken the truth to Genis, about three years back, and to this day Genis acted like the incident had not had such a profound effect on him. So his past was a lie, a concoction of images that should have protected him from the truth, that he was the son of Mar-Vell, and that there were dozens if not hundreds of the Kree’s enemies that, after disease had beaten them to the Captain, yearned for the blood of the son. But in truth it coupled with the revelation had created this. A drunk. A failure. A man barely not a boy, in a costume that did not fit. Genis did not look at Teddy, now, for fear of judgement from his newest of few connection to Mar. “I’ve been alive, now, just longer than that. Mar never knew about me, he never knew my mother wanted to have me. … I was an afterthought. Elysius, my mother, Teddy, Mar was with her till the day he died, and when he did she was lonely, so she had me using what was left of him. I’m, well, humans call it IVF, I think, I’m a product of Eternal Science.” 

Genis took a step back as he felt himself become further distant from Teddy, emotionally, as the revelations came about. “If you were looking for stories I have none. All I know of him are stories, and a meeting with him, an alternate version of him from another universe.” he kept secret his meeting with the real Mar, that would wait if ever revealed to another. 

"You really don’t want to wish that" he said suddenly solemn, looking down, then turning away as he felt shame for his actions, not so long ago, crash into him like a wave against the shore. 

The thought of being an older brother was even weirder than being a little brother. It shouldn’t have been so odd, though, considering how often he helped take care of Max and Jackson Kaplan. As much as he really wanted to know about Genis’ history, it also sounded kind of horrible. How did you grow up completely in three years? Does that mean that Genis would be an old man in a few more? Ugh, too many questions and he wasn’t willing to ask them just yet.  Teddy also wondered if Genis suffered from trying too hard to live up to the legend. Their dad was Captain Marvel. Hero of he Kree Empire and one of, to Teddy at least, the greatest heroes Earth has seen. Even before he knew of their connection, Teddy would have done most anything for a chance to meet the man.

“So… you’re…” He struggled for the words. Calling someone a test tube baby just didn’t sound like a nice thing. Teddy wasn’t the best with words so he might as well just wing it. “I have no idea what to say to that. I’ve never heard of Elysius before either. My mom was Anelle… the Skrull princess.” Hopefully Genis already knew of his mixed genes and wouldn’t be too disgusted. Most people had a problem with the Skrulls, but no one as much as the Kree.

It was a shame that Genis hadn’t got to know Mar-Vell either, it would be nice to have heard more about him. This put them in the same boat, though. Another thing for them to have in common. “I met Mar-Vell once, but it was so weird. I think he was time traveling from the past? He had no idea he had kids. Or what Pokemon was.”

He didn’t need friends. Friends only got hurt. Friends lead to how he felt about Anachronism, and he’s not going through that again. The pain of seeing your schoolmates bleed out on the ground next to you — the crushing shock that settles in when you can’t save the person that means the most to your best friend. It —-

The main problem now was that he didn't know how to help Cullen out. Would getting closer only cause problems? But it didn't feel right to just leave him alone.

Bobby dropped his bag down on his bed and looked around his room. It was weird to be back at the school, but it was familiar, which was nice. He’d been gone a long time, taking a bit of time to be away. Losing his mutation, even just for a little while, had really screwed with him. He wasn’t used to having to deal with that side of him.. and now that everything was back to normal and he’d settled back into his health, he figured it was time to go home.

He’d been in touch with a few people in his absense. He’d promised Sam that he wouldn’t leave him alone again, so he made sure that phonecalls and texts were a near constant thing. Bobby just needed to be away.. it was as simple as that.

But being back in the real world meant that he needed to start focusing on real world problems again. Protecting. Teaching. Grading. Bobby shivered at that last one. There was so much makeup work he needed to shift trough and finish marking. First though, he wanted a burger. The “important things” could wait.. the most important thing for him was to head out for some food.

He hadn’t meant to be up so long, he had been trying to keep a balance between his responsibilities on Earth and his work as a corpsman, but with Bobby gone and the city relatively safe these days, it was harder to resist the call of the stars. At least he stayed in touch, keeping that thin line of communication back to the people he loved every day that tethered him to his real life. It had kept him grounded when he hadn’t been on solid ground in ages, thank you Xandarian technology for your crystal clear reception billions of light years away. However it worked, and Sam had honestly no idea how 90% of this space magic crap worked anyways, it was nothing short of incredible.

Sam hadn’t flown to the diner, too much Nova force on his last mission had left his head with a constant distracting buzz and a nervous energy that caused his fingers to tap and twitch. It would fade, it always did, but for now he felt uncomfortably amped when all he wanted to do was rest. Best to take a break and let it die down before donning the helmet again. Cross your fingers no crazed supervillain assassin robot thing would try to attack the restaurant until he’d at least finished his fries.

As a surprise, he'd left a note on his pillow for Billy telling him to meet him at their usual diner for dinner. He'd made sure he had time to run back and shower before showing up, but he was seriously cutting it close. Rushing into the restaurant, a quick scan let him know that he had managed to arrive before Billy. It also showed him that Bobby was finally back in town.

Making his way over quickly, Teddy raised his hand in greeting. The two hadn't talked a whole lot recently and they probably had a few minutes to catch up before his date showed. It wasn't until he was standing right next to the table that he realized someone else was slumped next to Bobby. "Hey Bobby!" He greeted anyway, pausing for a second before chastising himself and acknowledging the other boy too, though much less enthusiastically. "Hey Sam."

He scowls, keeping his gaze pointed to the ground, and shrugs. “Who wants t’ know?” Cullen looks up, eyes locked on Teddy with a fiery intensity. “You the bloody sympathy party they throwin’ fer meh? Oooh. Poor litt’l Cullen, stuck on n’ island n’ forced t’ kill people. Piss off.” He scowls again. 

"I wasn't aware you wanted a full on party. We could probably throw something together, though." If Cullen wanted to go with sarcasm, Teddy could play along. "Yeah, no pity here, sorry man. I just wanted to show you around since it can get a bit confusing."

One minute, Cullen’s playing some fucked up version of the Hunger Games with about two dozen other kids, their lives being streamed to YouTube by bloody Arcade. —— Arcade. The bloke was a joke of a villain! Where does he think he gets off on pulling some Dr. Doom-level stunt?  —— The next, he’s being sat down and told he’s going to be joining the ranks of the young Avengers squad in America.

It’s his first day, and the young hunter is looking around, gauging who’d be easy to take out if needed, and where the exits are at, because he’s fairly certain he’ll have to bust through one if the cheesiness that is these spandex and tight-clad kids. He tugs on his sweater, rolling his eyes, and walks through a hallway, before noticing he’s being looked at by someone.

There's a guy he doesn't recognize walking around and Teddy stares at him for a few moments, trying to figure out if he was Cullen. Teddy jumped at bit at his shout, but at least the accent confirmed his suspicions. "Hey! I'm Teddy Altman. You're Cullen, right?" He asked, just to make sure.

As he waited, Billy sat on the ground, letting Cooper jump all over him before the hyper ball of fur settled comfortably on his chest, licking all over Billy’s face. Laughing, he scratched being the pups ears, only looking up when he heard footsteps coming. Standing up he let Cooper start sniffing at Teddy’s feet, looking for treats and he accepted the styrafoam cup from his boyfriend. “You’re the best Tee,” He murmured, turning his face so he caught Teddy’s lips against his own. 

Teddy threw his arm over Billy's shoulders as they started walking toward the park. It was nice to just relax for once and enjoy the sun. Of course, he was still on alert in case something happened, but that was just second nature after all these years. But having Billy so relaxed and Cooper being a total goof just made the world seem so much brighter.

With a groan, he rolled to his knees and took a moment to reorient himself, looking up to watch that giant green loser tackling the bots like this was his fight. Ugh! “I didn’t need your help.” The Nova snapped, finally getting his breath back and staggering up to his feet. “I was doing fine all on my own, you can leave now.”  It took another moment before he had enough energy to draw the Nova Force back through himself, faint blue glow getting stronger as he channeled the power into his fists. There was no way he was going to let that stupid loser show him up, this was his own mess and he’d take care of it.

Bolts of energy crackled from his hands, catching one of the bots in the chest and sending it reeling back in a shower of sparks. Stupid, freaking robots with their stupid freaking tentacles. Tentacles! He’d seen enough weird Japanese cartoons to be a little uncomfortable with the whole thing. He kicked off the ground, tackling one of the Doombots with a snarl, punching hard enough to take its stupid masked face off. “That’s one for me. Didn’t I tell you to leave?” He charged his fists again, blasting at the robot Teddy was grappling with, slipping “accidentally” to singe one green wing and answer that challenging grin. “Oh, whoops. Sorry, bro.”

But when he got zapped all bets were off. "So that's how we're playing? Fine, bro." Getting a good grip on the bot he was currently grappling with, Teddy twisted his torso and chucked the thing in Sam's direction, hitting him but also taking out the enemy Sam was fighting. "4-2" He muttered under his breath. Teddy was too busy plowing through robots in an attempt to win the stupid competition when he heard Sam's yelp.At first he rolled his eyes because this was the guy who was always going on about how great he was, but then he realized that Sam was getting his ass handed to him. Again.

Using the beat up body of a downed bot, Teddy charged at the one currently frying Sam. "Doesn't your fancy bucket have something to stop them? This is ridiculous." He grunted angrily. Because he was distracted by his annoyance he didn't notice the tentacle bots surrounding the two of them. "Oh, shit. Nova get up now." He said as he grabbed the guy's arm and hauled him to his feet. Being electrocuted sucked, and he was sure Sam was in a lot of pain, but they were surrounded and the stupid tentacles were blocking them from getting out by flying. 

He quickly ducked into the diner to order their strawberry and oreo shakes. It was a struggle to keep from bouncing on his toes in excitement. Even though they were together practically all the time, it had been while since they'd been on an actual date. It was a simple gesture, and they bought each other so much stuff that it really didn't mean anything, but Teddy wanted today to be special. Well, more than it already was after that awesome news.