ax_main | Teddy & Billy R | Backdated to April 6

Teddy checks in on the guy who stabbed him. It's awkward at first, but it goes well.

Teddy hadn't wanted to intrude on the new rescues, not while they were still getting patched back together in the infirmary and figuring out up from down again, but by the third day curiosity and concern was getting the better of him and he headed down. Dressed in jeans, sneakers and a t-shirt, a plaid shirt thrown overtop and all his piercings back in, Teddy would be making a very different impression than the last time they'd met. Hopefully.

At least he was much less likely to get stabbed again.

Still, he paused in the doorway of the room he'd been told belonged to the other Billy, knocked, and this time he waited for a reply.

The door had been open a crack, and inched open further even at Teddy's polite knock.

After a moment, a questioning, "Goody?" floated out in answer.

"Ah, no -- it's Teddy." Teddy poked his head around the door, and raised a hand in greeting. "Hey. I just came to see how you were doing. I can come back later, if you're busy, or waiting for someone."

Billy was sitting up in bed. There was a book on his lap that must have come from the school library, old and leatherbound with large, color plates of North American wildlife. The look he gave Teddy was curious, and not in the least hostile.

"No, it's OK. The doctor's showing Goody what I can eat." He tilted his head slightly. "I've heard your voice before."

Teddy stepped inside, leaving the door standing open behind him the way it had been before. "Yeah, you have. I was leading the rescue team, for what that's worth -- only I was a lot greener at the time," he added with an easy smile. He shifted just a little, going green but not bothering to pull Hulkling's full size around himself, before snapping back to baseline.

"Oh." Billy glanced away, his heart speeding up by a few paces. The boy didn't look angry about being stabbed. And everyone here had been nice and helpful so far. But he hadn't attacked any of them either.

He glanced back at Teddy, closed the book, and set it aside.

"Hulkling, right?"

Teddy nodded. "It's my codename, anyway. Around here it's just 'Teddy.' Theodore, technically, but that's an old-man name. And you're another Billy, right?" He seemed a heck of a lot better than he had a few days ago when he'd been pitching knives into Teddy's throat. The injustice of everything he'd seen in that place hit Teddy again, his blood running hot.

"Yeah." Billy sat up a little straighter; the idea of another Billy was discomforting, so he tried to ignore it. "I... I'm not going to attack you again, Teddy. I thought you were a guard, and I didn't think I'd get another chance to get Goodnight back."

Teddy scruffed his hand over the back of his neck -- that was something he should have predicted would happen, embarrassing as hell that he hadn't. "It's okay. I mean, I went in there looking like a guard, so it's a fair call. I'm honestly glad you got me instead of one of the other guys. I heal and they don't. Not as fast, anyway."

Billy nodded, relaxing a little. It was the closest thing to an apology he knew, and it seemed to have been accepted. So far, so good.

"OK. Thanks." He managed a smile. "And thanks for the rescue. I'd have been in trouble if you were a real guard."

"You'd probably have made a pretty good run for it, given how fast you were off the mark," Teddy offered, though he had no idea if that would make him feel any better. "I'm glad we got to you before you had to try, though. How're you feeling now?"

Billy shrugged. "I wouldn't go alone." Explanation finished, he considered Teddy's question. He'd been asked a few times already, but it seemed to mean something a little different to each person. "Better than when I got here. Still tired a lot. Goody's been trying to get me to watch 'Game of Thrones' with him, but it's not very good."

That fit with what Teddy remembered from the mission - Goodnight and Billy were obviously close - and then at the really mundane mention of tv shows, he began to relax for real. They were regular guys that had been through something awful, and he didn't have to walk entirely on egg shells.

"Yeah, I have to agree with you on that one," he grimaced in sympathy. "I know it's a show I'm supposed to like, but I can't get into it. Billy -- my Billy, that is- Wiccan," Teddy gave up. "You've met him -- he did the teleporting on the rescue. He's into it. Mostly for the dragons."

"Goody says I'd like it better if I saw it from the beginning." Billy shook his head emphatically. "No thanks. I just sleep when he turns it on. So it's OK." Billy settled back against his pillows. "How is he your Billy?"

"He's fine-" Teddy answered the question he thought he heard, then shook his head with a crooked grin. "Sorry. He's mine in that we're partners. Dating. That."

It was so much easier to say it now than it had been to even think the words only six months ago, now that Teddy knew people had his back. But this Billy was still a stranger. On the other hand, if he was going to be a jerk about it, better to find out now than be disappointed later, right?

"Oh." Billy considered that statement, found he had no real frame of reference for it, and shrugged. "OK. You seem nice. I haven't met him yet."

"He was with us when we rescued you," Teddy filled in. Man; the guy must have been in worse shape than Teddy'd realized. Funny enough - or perhaps not surprising at all - Teddy had a pretty limited range of experience when it came to recovering from injury. He'd never even broken a bone or been sick as a kid, so trying to put himself in Billy's shoes wasn't nearly as easy as it seemed. "Do you remember much about what happened to you?" he asked gently, not intending it to sound like a debriefing. "It's okay if you don't want to talk about it."

"I know. But I haven't met him," Billy clarified. "Not like this."

The other question required some thought. He wasn't sure why Teddy thought he would mind talking. Maybe because he knew Billy was still tired, and everything he remembered would be a lot of talk.

"I don't mind. I'll stop if I get tired." He offered Teddy a smile. "I remember most of the prison. Less about the hospital; I was always sick or cut up or healing there. The prison was mostly fighting, for whenever they needed it."

Teddy nodded, swallowing hard. he didn't know much of anything about what Alex and Fatale had been through, other than that it had been awful, and what little he knew about Tommy's past had been heavily filtered through Billy, but it tracked with those tidbits. "No-one here is going to make you do any of that," he promised firmly. "And I have the feeling that anyone who tried would have to go through Goody first," he added with a half-grin. "Did you guys know each other before?"

Billy's smile widened. "Yeah, Goody's kick ass." And anyone who could tell that on short notice was definitely in Billy's good books. He shook his head again in answer to Teddy's question. "No. Not long, I guess. Goody's keeper tried to get him to shoot me, but he wouldn't. Then they made him..." Billy sifted through his memory for the word he wanted, frowning as he came up short. "In charge of me? Because he cared. If he didn't obey, they'd beat me to hurt him. So he'd do what they wanted to keep me safe."

The breath hissed out between Teddy's teeth, his shock and horror palpable. His visual mind immediately served up images of himself and Billy - his Billy - in the same situation, the agony of seeing someone else punished for your mistakes. "That's- horrific. It's brainwashing." It was how children got turned into soldiers in other places as well. "I'm sorry - you don't need me to tell you that. It's just hard to know the right thing to say."

Billy shrugged. He didn't look away, but rubbed his neck unconsciously. "Nothing to say. It's how things are. Until Goody woke me up. I couldn't let them keep hurting him. Thanks for that. For getting him out."

Teddy nodded again. "It's what we have to do. And with the Professor's support and resources, we're going to keep doing it until they can't hurt anyone anymore." it was a nice dream, anyway. The likelihood of being able to shut down groups like that for good was a pipe dream -- they'd keep cropping up and X-Force would have to keep knocking them down like some seriously screwed-up game of whack-a-mole -- but every life they saved was one more point on the board for the good guys. That was what he had to keep in mind, not the massive scope of what they still had to face.

Billy let his hand drop back to the blankets. "Scott said I don't have to join your X-Force. I think I will, if we stay."

"Scott's right - you don't have to. Lots of people here aren't involved, for lots of different reasons." Though that number was getting smaller the more everyone seemed to learn about the kinds of things mutants were going up against. "But once you're feeling better, I'm sure you'll be welcome to come check it out."

"Yeah. OK." Billy cocked his head to one side. "What did you mean by 'before'? The school before this? I talked to Scott about that too."

"Before the Right caught you, I mean. Like ... Tommy was living with his parents in New Jersey. Alex was in a foster home, I think. Before Professor Xavier and my mom started talking, I went to high school in New York."

"Oh." Billy shrugged. It was an easy question, at least. "Who knows? I remember the school, the hospital, and the prison. There's no 'before' that. Goody said they've had a long time to mess with my head. That's probably why."

"Like Laura," Teddy blurted out before he caught himself. "Only I thought she blew that place up."

"Um." Billy gave Teddy a dubious look. "Not while I was there."

The door opened, and a lanky young man whose sandy hair needed a trim as much as the matching stubble needed a shave, stepped in, a sparsely-laden tray held in one hand. "Making friends, Billy?" He offered Teddy a smile, all easy southern charm.

Billy's face lit up at the sight of him, and Teddy's question was instantly forgotten. "Hey, Goody. That took a while."

"They're being very precise with your intake. Better safe than sorry, and I'm inclined to agree." Goody nodded to Teddy. "Pardon the intrusion," he said, a wry twist quirking his smile. "Billy's been so keen to get back on solid food, he's been about ready to gnaw his own arm off." The dramatic description earned Goody an eye-roll, but Billy didn't dispute it.

The way Billy positively glowed when Goody returned told Teddy pretty much all he needed to know about the lay of the land there, and he nodded with a smile to the newcomer. "I'll get out of your way -- I don't want to disrupt lunch. I just stopped in to see how you guys were holding up."

"Better now that I have actual food." Billy eyed the tray in Goodnight's hands pointedly, then glanced back to Teddy. "We can talk again later? Maybe I'll meet your Billy?"

Teddy nodded, to both of them and headed for the door. "You bet. We're in room 107 - swing by sometime, once you're out of here."