Ice Cream Cures All Ills
It was Billy's idea that they should meet up somewhere outside the Avengers Tower to talk. Some place where they wouldn't have God only knew who listening in on their conversations. Some place where they could relax
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"Yeah, great place for a private meeting, Billy," he muttered under his breath as the old lady rushed to take care of the customers. Stop being snappish, he ordered himself. It wasn't going to help anything. It wasn't like super-heroes didn't talk about aliens coming after them in public, right? It wasn't even like the Young Avengers themselves hadn't discussed team issues out in public. Right.
He was just jumpy and stressed, raw-scraped nerves and lack of rest -- and nourishment, he thought, eying his cooling food again -- affecting his reactions. Paranoia hazing the brain. As long as he kept his voice low, there wouldn't be a problem. Right.
His gaze skated across the other kids sitting across from him, before focusing on Tommy; he didn't care what the newcomer thought about this, so it'd be easier to deal with his reaction rather than that of the others. "The last thing I need to tell the Avengers is that apparently the Skrull and the Kree think I'm their space princess in need of rescuing, Cass," he said, reaching down to grab his sandwich and tear off a bite -- a small bite, he corrected himself as the burning heat began on his tongue. "A starving space princess," he mumbled around the mouthful, chewing and swallowing quickly before reaching for the glass of milk. What the hell had he ordered without thinking? Billy'd never let him forget it if he didn't eat it all now.
"The Super-Skrull said that my mother -- my real mother -- is a Skrull princess, and that I'm supposed to be their new Emperor. Only because of who my father was, the old Emperor was going to kill me, so my nurse -- I guess that's my mom, then -- took me to earth to find my dad. Who is Kree, if the Kree Army can be believed."
Another pause to bite, chew, swallow, grab for milk; thank God he was a shape-shifter and could control what color his face was not going to turn. "Which pretty much fits in with what Kl'rt was saying about kidnapping Captain Marvel the year I was born."
Back to the very important business of sandwich-eating while not burning his tongue off.
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Process. Consider. Think.
Now would be an incredibly bad time to leap up on top of the table and announce that he loved Teddy, and would love him even if he was biologically a Denubian Slime Devil, because Teddy was Teddy, dammit! And it didn't matter who Teddy's biological parents were because Mrs. Altman had loved him, and that was what made someone a real mom, not just giving birth. Or hatching. He'd heard somewhere that Skrulls laid eggs.
Right. Focus. Talk to Teddy privately later, just them, even if it meant cornering him and pinning him to the ground (mustnotthinkdirtythoughts. mustnotthinkdirtythoughts.).
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He didn't remember reading anything about a half-Skrull, half-Kree hatchling. So the Avengers probably didn't know about it. Especially since the Vision had gone through all their records, including the ones that they had tried to hide from him. The Vision got along well with computers.
But Teddy as the Skrull emperor?
"[Are you sure?]" he asked, leaning forward. "[I thought that the Kree and the Skrull were still at war. Do they want you to unite them or something?]"
Because, really that's just what Teddy needed right now - to have more responsibilites dumped on him right now. Jerks, the Vision thought.
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"This is what I was told, yesterday, by the alien terrorist murderer super-soldier whose race has been attacking and trying to take over Earth for longer than we've been alive, who keeps pulling the Avengers and everybody else into an intergalactic war that's been going on for millions of years, who attacked us twice yesterday and wrecked Billy's house and killed my mom."
Halfway through the low, hissed list, he'd begun to half-stand, fingers tight on the edge of the table. By the time he'd finished, he was leaning over the table, claws digging into the polished surface with a flat scraping noise. "Of course I'm not sure!" Teddy snapped, faltering control of his shape almost visible in the tint of his skin and the way his shirt and jacket strained over his shoulders. "The only reason I'm considering this at all is that too damn many things make sense!"
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For someone who couldn't necessarily eat, he was doing a damn good job of stuffing his foot into his mouth.
"[Ah...]" he stammered. "[I-I'm sorry. I, um, I...]"
The Vision focused on not phasing through the seats. If he had made a mistake, he was going to deal with the consequences.
How could he be so damn stupid?
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"Calm down, Teddy. I know you're under a lot of stress right now, but you have to remember that Viz is too much of a geek to have learned tact yet," she began, then continued in a whisper with "and you should maybe think about pulling out some of those brainwaves you copied before Teddy throws a table at you."
At this rate, she was starting to think it would've been better to meet up at the old warehouse as usual. At least there Teddy could beat stuff up without endangering their secret identities.
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Who would have thought it was the robot who’d piss someone off enough to loss control? And on accident at that? It was almost impressive how one little thing could set someone off, and he made sure to mentally file that ‘little thing’ away for later. Hell, this was almost as good as having been the one to set off the fireworks himself.
Except for the whole risking exposure thing. He could really do without that part.
“Hey, I get that your pissed, good for you by the way, but could you be less pissed in public? You know, were people can see us?” His voice was a slightly panicked hiss but hey, not going back to jail because Robot-boy asked the wrong question and Shape-shifting boy threw a hissy.
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His eyes darted briefly towards Rowena, who wasn't looking at them. Pointedly not looking at them. And tapping her fingers on her leg. "Please?"
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Crap. This wasn't him, this wasn't how he dealt with things. He didn't get pissed like this over something little. He wasn't dealing. "It's not your fault, Vision. I'm just -- sorry. I didn't mean that."
Enough not dealing. Pull yourself together, Ted. He looked up, letting a tired smile take over his expression. "Still getting used to this," he said, though the excuse rang hollow in his head. He didn't think he was ever going to get used to this. "That's all I know right now, and some of that I might be remembering wrong. Yesterday was kinda -- hectic."
He turned his attention to Tommy. "Your turn," he said, tone slightly flat.
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Not that he knew what to say either. Like he really knew what was going on.
“The state has custody of me and pretty much agreed with itself to do all sorts of stuff to me, to try to turn me into a kind of solider. I know they can’t be happy that I got away after all the trouble they went through to keep me. I don’t know what they were trying to do exactly or if they got around to it before you got there. I mean, I don’t feel much like a super solider and I can’t see myself being ‘yay, kill people for the government’ at the moment but I don’t know.”
He looked down at the other teens, voice dropping to a deadpan, hoping to hide how uncomfortable the topic made him. “I also like puppies, chocolate, and long walks on the beach.” He looked over at Kate, arching an eyebrow suggestively.
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Didn't anyone have a "normal" life anymore?
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"Do you eat your puppies raw, or do you cook them with marinara sauce first?" she asked, keeping her expression cool but just out of stone-cold range. It wouldn't do to instigate an explosion due to typical teenagery.
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Fortunately, those last two looks were so miniscule they were undetectable.
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He made a vague sort of gesture then shrugged, staring at the android. "Just...stuff. I was unconscious most of the time," Thank god for small favors at least. "And I'd wake up with...needle marks, bandages where they weren't before, or sore, like I'd been running for hours. The only time I was awake outside of my cell was when they were testing my powers."
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