Figured You Out
Title: Figured You Out
Fandom: Young Avengers
Characters: The Young Avengers. I’m too lazy to list them all, and by now anyone reading this should know who they are. Except for Eli, who was on a munchie run during this.
Prompt: 85. Read
Word Count: 642
Rating: PG
Author's Notes: Billy thinks about these things a lot. I own nothing.
Billy dropped a pile of books and notebooks on the Lair’s biggest table, his face split into an impossibly large grin. “I’ve finally figured it out. I think, anyway.”
“What? Why you’re the uncrowned King of the Dorks?” Tommy asked, already bored with whatever it was Billy was going to announce.
“I’ve figured out why things went the way they did with Iron Lad.”
Tommy yawned dramatically and turned up the TV. “Whatever.”
“What did you figure out?” Cassie asked, picking up one of the heavier tomes and flipping through it.
“This is only a theory, but it fits a lot of the stuff I’ve learned since Dr. Strange started letting me at his library.” He opened up one of the notebooks as everyone except Tommy gathered around. “Okay, first thing: Reality as we know it is fluid, and there are literally an infinite number of alternate realities out there. Therefore, logically, there are an infinite number of possible futures.” He flipped through the notebook in his hand until he realized that it was the wrong one, then switched it out for another one.
“Now, Jonas,” he paused, putting emphasis on the name Vision had taken for himself, “tells me that it’s easier to travel back in time than foreword. According to,” Billy paused to check his notes, “a Dr. Sinesis, this is because we are more firmly anchored to our pasts than to possible futures. The less likely a future is from the point of reality you’re starting from, the harder it is to get to it. That’s why we’ve got time travelers from the future that are here and stuck. They cannot exist in the new future they’ve created, and their native timeline is no longer accessible to them.”
“And this explains why we disappeared when Iron Lad killed Kang?” Teddy asked, slightly confused, though he was happy to finally know what Billy’s big secret project had been the last few weeks.
“I’m getting to that,” Billy assured his boyfriend. “Y’see, I’ve got a theory about the Kang we were dealing with. I think he was pretty... well, young. This was a Kang new to his time travel, and eager to show off. So he goes to visit his past self, our Iron Lad, and to get some payback on the guys who made him miserable when he was in school. But Nate hadn’t yet had the experiences that would make him into Kang, and he bolted to our time. Now, I think the Kang we fought wasn’t a Kang who had actually fought the Avengers much yet, so when he was killed it created a reality where he hadn’t fought the Avengers, and Teddy and I didn’t exist.” Billy picked up one of the thick books he had brought with him. “Normally, we shouldn’t have been affected by this new reality, but I think we had become caught up in Nate and Kang’s chrono-field. Those with the least exposure to it - Cap, Iron Man, Ms. Jones - were changed first, and then me and Teddy faded from that reality because we couldn’t exist there. Removing Nate’s influence sent everyone back to the proper reality, and everything that happened with him did happen in this reality because instead of stopping Nate from coming back in time in the first place, he was just reinserted at the point that Kang took him out in the first place.”
[That is... essentially correct, to my knowledge,] Vision agreed.
“I have a headache,” Kate muttered.
Fandom: Young Avengers
Characters: The Young Avengers. I’m too lazy to list them all, and by now anyone reading this should know who they are. Except for Eli, who was on a munchie run during this.
Prompt: 85. Read
Word Count: 642
Rating: PG
Author's Notes: Billy thinks about these things a lot. I own nothing.
Billy dropped a pile of books and notebooks on the Lair’s biggest table, his face split into an impossibly large grin. “I’ve finally figured it out. I think, anyway.”
“What? Why you’re the uncrowned King of the Dorks?” Tommy asked, already bored with whatever it was Billy was going to announce.
“I’ve figured out why things went the way they did with Iron Lad.”
Tommy yawned dramatically and turned up the TV. “Whatever.”
“What did you figure out?” Cassie asked, picking up one of the heavier tomes and flipping through it.
“This is only a theory, but it fits a lot of the stuff I’ve learned since Dr. Strange started letting me at his library.” He opened up one of the notebooks as everyone except Tommy gathered around. “Okay, first thing: Reality as we know it is fluid, and there are literally an infinite number of alternate realities out there. Therefore, logically, there are an infinite number of possible futures.” He flipped through the notebook in his hand until he realized that it was the wrong one, then switched it out for another one.
“Now, Jonas,” he paused, putting emphasis on the name Vision had taken for himself, “tells me that it’s easier to travel back in time than foreword. According to,” Billy paused to check his notes, “a Dr. Sinesis, this is because we are more firmly anchored to our pasts than to possible futures. The less likely a future is from the point of reality you’re starting from, the harder it is to get to it. That’s why we’ve got time travelers from the future that are here and stuck. They cannot exist in the new future they’ve created, and their native timeline is no longer accessible to them.”
“And this explains why we disappeared when Iron Lad killed Kang?” Teddy asked, slightly confused, though he was happy to finally know what Billy’s big secret project had been the last few weeks.
“I’m getting to that,” Billy assured his boyfriend. “Y’see, I’ve got a theory about the Kang we were dealing with. I think he was pretty... well, young. This was a Kang new to his time travel, and eager to show off. So he goes to visit his past self, our Iron Lad, and to get some payback on the guys who made him miserable when he was in school. But Nate hadn’t yet had the experiences that would make him into Kang, and he bolted to our time. Now, I think the Kang we fought wasn’t a Kang who had actually fought the Avengers much yet, so when he was killed it created a reality where he hadn’t fought the Avengers, and Teddy and I didn’t exist.” Billy picked up one of the thick books he had brought with him. “Normally, we shouldn’t have been affected by this new reality, but I think we had become caught up in Nate and Kang’s chrono-field. Those with the least exposure to it - Cap, Iron Man, Ms. Jones - were changed first, and then me and Teddy faded from that reality because we couldn’t exist there. Removing Nate’s influence sent everyone back to the proper reality, and everything that happened with him did happen in this reality because instead of stopping Nate from coming back in time in the first place, he was just reinserted at the point that Kang took him out in the first place.”
[That is... essentially correct, to my knowledge,] Vision agreed.
“I have a headache,” Kate muttered.