Dr. Horrible fic: all roads lead to where you are (Penny/Billy, PG)
title: all roads lead to where you are
fandom: Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
pairing: Penny/Billy, a bit of Penny/Hammer
word count: ~2400
continuity: Goes AU just before Slipping
warnings: Awkwardness, really short paragraphs, ridiculous amounts of dialogue
notes: Tamest thing I've ever written? Started out ironic and quickly deteriorated into fairly generic fluff, pretty much. Though it originally started as comment fic for the prompt "Billy/Penny, AU: She never realized until her first date with him how much other people terrified him. She knew then, he just wanted to go home.", I figured that, since I've totally blocked out the ending (the thing with three acts and fun songs is it didn't really hit me, that ending), I might as well write my own.
During Hammer's speech, Penny had realized how little she wanted him. Even her deepest instincts to try to open up a life of goodness for him told her to run.
So she did, and only on the night news did she find out that Dr. Horrible had attacked the place, and Captain Hammer, unharmed, had tried to check himself into the nearest hospital, where he had been given a placebo and told to go home and sleep it off.
Penny couldn't break up with him in such a state. The world would lose a hero, and Penny knew the world needed heroes in these dark times where the Evil League of Evil seemed to be getting cleverer and stronger.
Still, she didn't call, and she hoped a hero like Hammer would know to take a hint and leave her alone.
*
As it turns out, he did not.
He showed up at the front of her apartment building the next day, asking if they were still on for the night.
"What's tonight?" she asked, as though she was asking him to refresh her memory, where in reality her confused expression was due to wondering how she could break the news to him in a way that wouldn't hurt him like his speech had hurt her.
"Some TLC for the wounded hero, of course," said Captain Hammer, pointing at his unharmed muscles.
Penny tilted her head and stroked his cheek.
She didn't have to break him, did she? For the good of the world, to battle Dr. Horrible, she could bring him back to being his usual self.
Even if it was a self Penny didn't agree with.
*
At the laundromat, Billy had frozen yogurt.
"You shouldn't have bothered," said Penny, nonetheless grabbing the plastic spoon he offered her.
"It's no bother if you do it for someone who deserves it as much as you do," said Billy, all raw, embarrassed honesty, and Penny had to blush and hide her face.
She didn't deserve it. She wasn't giving Hammer a chance. Maybe last night had been a misunderstanding-she barely remembered what had made her so scared.
So she looked at Billy, and decided to tell him first.
"I'm thinking of breaking up with him," she said, and hoped Billy knew who she meant.
"With Captain Hammer?" Billy said quickly, though Penny didn't know whether he was just really glad, or really surprised. He coughed. "I mean, did he do something to you? Did something happen between the two of you?" Billy looked worried, and Penny knew she could trust him.
"I don't know," said Penny. "When we opened the shelter-I thought it was about the shelter, not about him."
Billy's expression turned to disbelief. "It's always about-" He coughed again, and blinked, and said, "I think you're right. I think he needs to grow up before he can date a lovely woman like you."
Penny hid her face, and savored the yogurt. It was cold, and it was tasty, and she felt guilty, but she kept digging in nevertheless. "Maybe what he needs is someone to hold his hand, and I'd be doing him more bad than good if I wasn't there for him."
"Are you kid-" Billy began, but thought better of it. "It's not enough to want to help. From what I saw in the news, Captain Hammer needs psychiatric help."
Penny didn't know what Billy meant. "What do you mean?"
Billy sighed, and carefully said, "I mean he has a lot of issues, and he needs to admit them first, and if you shelter him he won't. He needs to know he can lose you." She heard him mutter into his spoon, "What are you doing, giving her relationship advice?", but it must have been Penny's ears deceiving her.
"So I should-withhold my affection?"
"No," Billy said quickly. "No, that's not good. That's unhealthy." He nodded to support his point, and licked his spoon. "Man, this is good."
Penny smiled.
"You should definitely break up with him," Billy said. "It's not about what's right, it's about what feels right. Does it feel right for you to keep dating him?"
Penny didn't know. "I don't know," she said. "But maybe some time apart-"
"Yes," Billy interrupted.
"Maybe that will be good."
"I'm sure it will."
He turned to check his laundry, and she looked at him.
He waited for her with frozen yogurt. Captain Hammer hadn't even offered to pay for his own.
*
She couldn't tell that to him.
"So, are you coming back to my place?" Hammer said suggestively as they strolled down the street. His arm was around her shoulders, though he kept pulling away to fix his hair.
Penny looked at him, an apology in her face. "Actually, I have to get up really early tomorrow."
"I'll make it quick," Hammer said, ever the gentleman.
"I won't have time to get home in the morning," said Penny.
"You can leave after we-" he raised an eyebrow, winked "-do our thing."
Penny looked at him like she'd never seen him. It was like when, during the speech, she had heard him like she never had before.
She knew she couldn't stay much longer. "I have to go home."
"You can't stay? Not even a few minutes?"
Penny shook her head.
He let her go.
*
He also showed up at her doorstep the next morning, seemingly offended beyond relief, not even noticing that she had lied to him about having an early-morning commitment.
"You're going to abandon me?" he asked, and he looked almost like a bull the way his nostrils flared, Penny thought, and reprimanded herself.
"I never said-"
"I know about it!" Hammer exclaimed. "The whole world knows about it!"
Penny didn't know what he meant. "What do you mean?"
"It's on Dr. Horrible's blog!" he said, and his face broke.
"Why would-" Penny began. "How can you just believe Dr. Horrible? He's evil!"
"But he always tells the truth! It's how we get him every time," Hammer said, and slid down to the floor outside her apartment, leaned against the wall, and started to cry. "Humiliated by Dr. Horrible... How could you do this to me?"
Penny rested a hand on his shoulder, stroking lightly, and realized just how little Captain Hammer cared about her.
She still felt bad, so she slid down to the floor next to him and held him until he decided that the world needed a hero, and he wouldn't be the one to desert them like Penny was deserting him.
Penny wavered.
"I'm too good for anyone else to take my place," Captain Hammer said.
Penny stopped wavering.
*
The following week, Billy took Penny to his favorite bakery.
It was empty.
"Why is this place empty?" asked Penny.
Billy looked at her like a fish out of water, first, and then shrugged. "It's not what it looks like."
"It's not empty?" she said, amused.
"Well, that part's what it looks like. People don't know what they're missing. All those corporate places taking over the world, and everyone's missing out on Julia's homemade cookies. It's a shame, really," he observed.
He ordered-asked her first-and bought a few more pastries to hand out at the homeless shelter.
She sighed.
He took a bite of his welcome raspberry muffin. "They're good," he said.
Penny tried her own, and also thought they were.
*
She asked him out for Friday. Called him and everything. The line went nuts for a few seconds, and all she could hear was gibberish, so she asked him to please repeat what he had said.
"I said, of course, yes," Billy said. "I mean, if you want to."
"I called you," Penny said. "That means I do."
Billy laughed nervously. "Maybe you changed your mind."
She smiled fondly, though he couldn't see her. "I'm smiling fondly," she told him.
There was silence.
"Billy?"
"Um, yes, ah, that's, uh, great," he said, "I'll see you Friday," and hung up.
*
She took him to her favorite restaurant.
"Some small, family-run places are busy at times," Penny said. "The family's wonderful. They volunteer at the shelter all the time."
Billy said yes, that's great, Penny thought. It sounded kind of like a baby's gurgling.
Mr. Gardner came out to take their order.
Billy hid behind the menu and hunched up into his chair.
"Billy?" she said.
"Yeah," he croaked. "I-why don't you order for me?"
So she did.
Billy came out of hiding.
"Mr. Gardner is a very nice man," Penny said. "I know he looks a little-"
"Like a Hells angel?"
Penny pondered this. "Cranky, I would have said, but that's because he does so much for society. He forgets himself sometimes. He forgets to smile."
Billy's fist was shaking on the table, Penny noticed, and reached out to calm him down.
He quickly did, and she knew it was from shock. His shoulders relaxed, and he looked at their hands. Penny intertwined their fingers.
"Oh," he said after a few seconds.
"You're great," she said, and held onto him when Mr. Gardner came back with their food.
Billy smiled awkwardly at him this time.
Penny felt proud of him.
*
She couldn't say that to him, but, after he jumped when a small boy asked them for change, and stammered when an old woman asked them the time, she could say something.
"Why are you so afraid of people?" she asked as they strolled down the street.
Billy turned to look at her. "I'm not," he said quietly, kept walking.
"You are," Penny observed. "You shouldn't be." She held his hand tighter.
"I don't know," he said.
"We can work on that," replied Penny.
He frowned. "Uh?" She smiled, and he added, "Are you going to withhold your attention until I learn to deal with everyone?"
"No," she said, "of course not."
She wasn't sure what she'd do, but, for the time being, she just took him home.
*
The next day, they sat on a bench in the park, and she moved closer. He filled his spoon with the cup of ice-cream he was holding, and offered it to her. She let herself be fed, and smiled.
He smiled back.
They smiled at each other for a while.
*
She tried to kiss him.
He pulled away. "I need to tell you something," he said.
"What is it?" asked she. He looked in awful pain. "Are you okay?"
"Yes," he said, "no. Maybe." He sucked in a breath. "I don't want to ruin this for you."
She realized what he meant. "I've watched your blogs."
"You-" She nodded. "And you're okay with it?"
"I'm sorry you didn't get in," she said, and she was honest. "You're a truly clever villain."
"I am?"
"Very clever," she said, "but I don't think you want to be."
"I like being clever."
"I meant a villain."
Realization washed over Billy's face. "I couldn't-I can't give that up. It's my passion."
Penny didn't understand. "Being evil?" He nodded. "But you've never killed anyone."
"I tried to-"
"But you didn't." He blinked. "I think you're having a quarter-life crisis."
"I'm older than-"
She put a finger to his lips, shushing him. "I will show you the goodness of the world," she said, very serious. She didn't want Billy to think she was anything other than.
"There's no-"
Penny knew how this was. So many homeless men had gone through something similar: you convinced yourself that you were worthless, or that the world hated you. You hated the world, and were so good at it that you made it your job.
It was easy to hate, but Penny saw something else in Billy: she saw that he wanted to understand, that he had lost hope but he still missed it, still craved it.
"There is, Billy," said Penny with a nod. "You've been too scared to let yourself see it, to dig in." And she sang, once more, "So keep your head up, Billy, darling," as if it were an ending.
Billy sighed. "We could rule the world together," he sang back, to a conversational version of the tune from her own song.
"I don't want to rule the world," she sang quietly, with a smile, and finished, "I'm just looking for someone to share it with me."
Billy looked down. He didn't seem convinced, but he wasn't opposed either. He was so good-such a clever man, but had never had the drive to really mess things up. Everything about Dr. Horrible was fixable, and Penny figured that was all Billy's doing, Billy trying to fix himself.
Penny could work with that.
"But what would I do?" asked Billy.
Penny got a glint in her eye. She held his hand tighter.
"What do you think about physics?"
He shrugged.
*
They had another date-he cooked for her, and they had a nighttime picnic.
"I've been looking into going to college," he said.
"Yeah?"
He almost-blushed. "Yeah."
"That's a big step."
He looked down and smiled apologetically.
"What is it?"
He looked at her like he didn't know whether to tell her or not, so she nodded for him to continue. He grimaced as he spoke. "I don't know if this not being evil thing is going to stick."
"Oh," she said. "That's okay. Just keep it in mind."
He looked down again. "I had half the plans to poison the ducks in the lake."
"But ducks are adorable," she said.
Billy seemed ashamed, and she liked him all the more for it when he confessed that a duck had attacked him at the zoo when he was just eight.
"Not all ducks are the same," she said, and hoped he knew she meant people, and he'd tell her what people had done to him one day.
"I'll delay the attack," he said, and waited for confirmation.
"Okay," Penny said.
*
They reached her apartment building.
"This is me," she said. He smiled nervously. "I had a good time," she continued.
He kept holding her hand, but she didn't try to get out of his grasp. Instead, she reached out for his face with her other hand, and cupped his jaw.
"What are you doing?" he asked, not very quietly, and it didn't ruin the moment one bit.
She'd never been at this side of the net. It felt like payback-for all the good boyfriends that had made her feel safe. "I'm kissing you," she said, and so she did.
fandom: Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
pairing: Penny/Billy, a bit of Penny/Hammer
word count: ~2400
continuity: Goes AU just before Slipping
warnings: Awkwardness, really short paragraphs, ridiculous amounts of dialogue
notes: Tamest thing I've ever written? Started out ironic and quickly deteriorated into fairly generic fluff, pretty much. Though it originally started as comment fic for the prompt "Billy/Penny, AU: She never realized until her first date with him how much other people terrified him. She knew then, he just wanted to go home.", I figured that, since I've totally blocked out the ending (the thing with three acts and fun songs is it didn't really hit me, that ending), I might as well write my own.
During Hammer's speech, Penny had realized how little she wanted him. Even her deepest instincts to try to open up a life of goodness for him told her to run.
So she did, and only on the night news did she find out that Dr. Horrible had attacked the place, and Captain Hammer, unharmed, had tried to check himself into the nearest hospital, where he had been given a placebo and told to go home and sleep it off.
Penny couldn't break up with him in such a state. The world would lose a hero, and Penny knew the world needed heroes in these dark times where the Evil League of Evil seemed to be getting cleverer and stronger.
Still, she didn't call, and she hoped a hero like Hammer would know to take a hint and leave her alone.
*
As it turns out, he did not.
He showed up at the front of her apartment building the next day, asking if they were still on for the night.
"What's tonight?" she asked, as though she was asking him to refresh her memory, where in reality her confused expression was due to wondering how she could break the news to him in a way that wouldn't hurt him like his speech had hurt her.
"Some TLC for the wounded hero, of course," said Captain Hammer, pointing at his unharmed muscles.
Penny tilted her head and stroked his cheek.
She didn't have to break him, did she? For the good of the world, to battle Dr. Horrible, she could bring him back to being his usual self.
Even if it was a self Penny didn't agree with.
*
At the laundromat, Billy had frozen yogurt.
"You shouldn't have bothered," said Penny, nonetheless grabbing the plastic spoon he offered her.
"It's no bother if you do it for someone who deserves it as much as you do," said Billy, all raw, embarrassed honesty, and Penny had to blush and hide her face.
She didn't deserve it. She wasn't giving Hammer a chance. Maybe last night had been a misunderstanding-she barely remembered what had made her so scared.
So she looked at Billy, and decided to tell him first.
"I'm thinking of breaking up with him," she said, and hoped Billy knew who she meant.
"With Captain Hammer?" Billy said quickly, though Penny didn't know whether he was just really glad, or really surprised. He coughed. "I mean, did he do something to you? Did something happen between the two of you?" Billy looked worried, and Penny knew she could trust him.
"I don't know," said Penny. "When we opened the shelter-I thought it was about the shelter, not about him."
Billy's expression turned to disbelief. "It's always about-" He coughed again, and blinked, and said, "I think you're right. I think he needs to grow up before he can date a lovely woman like you."
Penny hid her face, and savored the yogurt. It was cold, and it was tasty, and she felt guilty, but she kept digging in nevertheless. "Maybe what he needs is someone to hold his hand, and I'd be doing him more bad than good if I wasn't there for him."
"Are you kid-" Billy began, but thought better of it. "It's not enough to want to help. From what I saw in the news, Captain Hammer needs psychiatric help."
Penny didn't know what Billy meant. "What do you mean?"
Billy sighed, and carefully said, "I mean he has a lot of issues, and he needs to admit them first, and if you shelter him he won't. He needs to know he can lose you." She heard him mutter into his spoon, "What are you doing, giving her relationship advice?", but it must have been Penny's ears deceiving her.
"So I should-withhold my affection?"
"No," Billy said quickly. "No, that's not good. That's unhealthy." He nodded to support his point, and licked his spoon. "Man, this is good."
Penny smiled.
"You should definitely break up with him," Billy said. "It's not about what's right, it's about what feels right. Does it feel right for you to keep dating him?"
Penny didn't know. "I don't know," she said. "But maybe some time apart-"
"Yes," Billy interrupted.
"Maybe that will be good."
"I'm sure it will."
He turned to check his laundry, and she looked at him.
He waited for her with frozen yogurt. Captain Hammer hadn't even offered to pay for his own.
*
She couldn't tell that to him.
"So, are you coming back to my place?" Hammer said suggestively as they strolled down the street. His arm was around her shoulders, though he kept pulling away to fix his hair.
Penny looked at him, an apology in her face. "Actually, I have to get up really early tomorrow."
"I'll make it quick," Hammer said, ever the gentleman.
"I won't have time to get home in the morning," said Penny.
"You can leave after we-" he raised an eyebrow, winked "-do our thing."
Penny looked at him like she'd never seen him. It was like when, during the speech, she had heard him like she never had before.
She knew she couldn't stay much longer. "I have to go home."
"You can't stay? Not even a few minutes?"
Penny shook her head.
He let her go.
*
He also showed up at her doorstep the next morning, seemingly offended beyond relief, not even noticing that she had lied to him about having an early-morning commitment.
"You're going to abandon me?" he asked, and he looked almost like a bull the way his nostrils flared, Penny thought, and reprimanded herself.
"I never said-"
"I know about it!" Hammer exclaimed. "The whole world knows about it!"
Penny didn't know what he meant. "What do you mean?"
"It's on Dr. Horrible's blog!" he said, and his face broke.
"Why would-" Penny began. "How can you just believe Dr. Horrible? He's evil!"
"But he always tells the truth! It's how we get him every time," Hammer said, and slid down to the floor outside her apartment, leaned against the wall, and started to cry. "Humiliated by Dr. Horrible... How could you do this to me?"
Penny rested a hand on his shoulder, stroking lightly, and realized just how little Captain Hammer cared about her.
She still felt bad, so she slid down to the floor next to him and held him until he decided that the world needed a hero, and he wouldn't be the one to desert them like Penny was deserting him.
Penny wavered.
"I'm too good for anyone else to take my place," Captain Hammer said.
Penny stopped wavering.
*
The following week, Billy took Penny to his favorite bakery.
It was empty.
"Why is this place empty?" asked Penny.
Billy looked at her like a fish out of water, first, and then shrugged. "It's not what it looks like."
"It's not empty?" she said, amused.
"Well, that part's what it looks like. People don't know what they're missing. All those corporate places taking over the world, and everyone's missing out on Julia's homemade cookies. It's a shame, really," he observed.
He ordered-asked her first-and bought a few more pastries to hand out at the homeless shelter.
She sighed.
He took a bite of his welcome raspberry muffin. "They're good," he said.
Penny tried her own, and also thought they were.
*
She asked him out for Friday. Called him and everything. The line went nuts for a few seconds, and all she could hear was gibberish, so she asked him to please repeat what he had said.
"I said, of course, yes," Billy said. "I mean, if you want to."
"I called you," Penny said. "That means I do."
Billy laughed nervously. "Maybe you changed your mind."
She smiled fondly, though he couldn't see her. "I'm smiling fondly," she told him.
There was silence.
"Billy?"
"Um, yes, ah, that's, uh, great," he said, "I'll see you Friday," and hung up.
*
She took him to her favorite restaurant.
"Some small, family-run places are busy at times," Penny said. "The family's wonderful. They volunteer at the shelter all the time."
Billy said yes, that's great, Penny thought. It sounded kind of like a baby's gurgling.
Mr. Gardner came out to take their order.
Billy hid behind the menu and hunched up into his chair.
"Billy?" she said.
"Yeah," he croaked. "I-why don't you order for me?"
So she did.
Billy came out of hiding.
"Mr. Gardner is a very nice man," Penny said. "I know he looks a little-"
"Like a Hells angel?"
Penny pondered this. "Cranky, I would have said, but that's because he does so much for society. He forgets himself sometimes. He forgets to smile."
Billy's fist was shaking on the table, Penny noticed, and reached out to calm him down.
He quickly did, and she knew it was from shock. His shoulders relaxed, and he looked at their hands. Penny intertwined their fingers.
"Oh," he said after a few seconds.
"You're great," she said, and held onto him when Mr. Gardner came back with their food.
Billy smiled awkwardly at him this time.
Penny felt proud of him.
*
She couldn't say that to him, but, after he jumped when a small boy asked them for change, and stammered when an old woman asked them the time, she could say something.
"Why are you so afraid of people?" she asked as they strolled down the street.
Billy turned to look at her. "I'm not," he said quietly, kept walking.
"You are," Penny observed. "You shouldn't be." She held his hand tighter.
"I don't know," he said.
"We can work on that," replied Penny.
He frowned. "Uh?" She smiled, and he added, "Are you going to withhold your attention until I learn to deal with everyone?"
"No," she said, "of course not."
She wasn't sure what she'd do, but, for the time being, she just took him home.
*
The next day, they sat on a bench in the park, and she moved closer. He filled his spoon with the cup of ice-cream he was holding, and offered it to her. She let herself be fed, and smiled.
He smiled back.
They smiled at each other for a while.
*
She tried to kiss him.
He pulled away. "I need to tell you something," he said.
"What is it?" asked she. He looked in awful pain. "Are you okay?"
"Yes," he said, "no. Maybe." He sucked in a breath. "I don't want to ruin this for you."
She realized what he meant. "I've watched your blogs."
"You-" She nodded. "And you're okay with it?"
"I'm sorry you didn't get in," she said, and she was honest. "You're a truly clever villain."
"I am?"
"Very clever," she said, "but I don't think you want to be."
"I like being clever."
"I meant a villain."
Realization washed over Billy's face. "I couldn't-I can't give that up. It's my passion."
Penny didn't understand. "Being evil?" He nodded. "But you've never killed anyone."
"I tried to-"
"But you didn't." He blinked. "I think you're having a quarter-life crisis."
"I'm older than-"
She put a finger to his lips, shushing him. "I will show you the goodness of the world," she said, very serious. She didn't want Billy to think she was anything other than.
"There's no-"
Penny knew how this was. So many homeless men had gone through something similar: you convinced yourself that you were worthless, or that the world hated you. You hated the world, and were so good at it that you made it your job.
It was easy to hate, but Penny saw something else in Billy: she saw that he wanted to understand, that he had lost hope but he still missed it, still craved it.
"There is, Billy," said Penny with a nod. "You've been too scared to let yourself see it, to dig in." And she sang, once more, "So keep your head up, Billy, darling," as if it were an ending.
Billy sighed. "We could rule the world together," he sang back, to a conversational version of the tune from her own song.
"I don't want to rule the world," she sang quietly, with a smile, and finished, "I'm just looking for someone to share it with me."
Billy looked down. He didn't seem convinced, but he wasn't opposed either. He was so good-such a clever man, but had never had the drive to really mess things up. Everything about Dr. Horrible was fixable, and Penny figured that was all Billy's doing, Billy trying to fix himself.
Penny could work with that.
"But what would I do?" asked Billy.
Penny got a glint in her eye. She held his hand tighter.
"What do you think about physics?"
He shrugged.
*
They had another date-he cooked for her, and they had a nighttime picnic.
"I've been looking into going to college," he said.
"Yeah?"
He almost-blushed. "Yeah."
"That's a big step."
He looked down and smiled apologetically.
"What is it?"
He looked at her like he didn't know whether to tell her or not, so she nodded for him to continue. He grimaced as he spoke. "I don't know if this not being evil thing is going to stick."
"Oh," she said. "That's okay. Just keep it in mind."
He looked down again. "I had half the plans to poison the ducks in the lake."
"But ducks are adorable," she said.
Billy seemed ashamed, and she liked him all the more for it when he confessed that a duck had attacked him at the zoo when he was just eight.
"Not all ducks are the same," she said, and hoped he knew she meant people, and he'd tell her what people had done to him one day.
"I'll delay the attack," he said, and waited for confirmation.
"Okay," Penny said.
*
They reached her apartment building.
"This is me," she said. He smiled nervously. "I had a good time," she continued.
He kept holding her hand, but she didn't try to get out of his grasp. Instead, she reached out for his face with her other hand, and cupped his jaw.
"What are you doing?" he asked, not very quietly, and it didn't ruin the moment one bit.
She'd never been at this side of the net. It felt like payback-for all the good boyfriends that had made her feel safe. "I'm kissing you," she said, and so she did.