my new OTP, let me show you it

[starsandatoms]

So there's this comic book series from Marvel called Young Avengers. It's not about the Avengers when they were younger, but about a whole new cast of characters whose powers are vaguely kinda sorta not really related to those of four of the original Avengers (Captain America, Iron Man, the Hulk, and Thor).

The awesome begins fast and continues furiously:



I believe that in Marvel fandom this is called "The Infamous Hug-n-Fly." Neither of those are Billy or Teddy, I admit, but look at that. That's like page three, and it's just Cap and Iron Man, chillin' out, in each other's personal space bubbles.



But anyway, that doesn't have anything to do with my OTP. Well, with this OTP.

The first time we see Billy and Teddy is...well, let me just go ahead and show you:



So it's not particularly shippy, but this is the first time we see the team in action. There's some context - rich wedding, hostage situation, blah blah blah, this is a picspam and not a step-by-step Sparknotes guide to Young Avengers. But in short: the one on the left, in the armor, is Iron Lad; the one that looks like the Hulk is Hulkling, AKA Theodore "Teddy" Altman, AKA one half of my ~*~brand new OTP~*~; the one hanging onto his shoulders, lawl, is Eli, AKA Patriot; and the one with the funny wings over his ears is Asguardian, AKA William "Billy" Kaplan, soon to change his superhero name to Wiccan, the other half of my sparkly new ship.

If you're wondering what their powers are:



Obviously that's not all there is to it, because it's never that simple, but it's good enough for right now and we'll cover the developments as they break.

Now, according to an interview or five with the writer of Young Avengers, he had always intended for Billy and Teddy to be a couple at this stage, but didn't want to do anything overt. So instead he did this:



Apparently he didn't realize that fangirls like me just spent a paragraph above flailing over the completely-platonic hug-n-fly. This? This is about two steps from "No, you hang up first! No, you!" and that is just chum for the fangirl-sharks.



Speaking of fans. The thing is, Jessica Jones is absolutely amazing and badass as all hell, but she's not exactly A-list in the Marvel Universe. It's a running gag in Young Avengers that everyone she meets knows who she is, because other than people who just identify her as "Luke Cage's wife" pretty much nobody knows who she is. But Billy and Teddy know her on sight, because they are nerds.



Billy, since he can fly, kind of ends up giving rides to everyone, but Hulkling most often.



Whenever the team gets separate-panel reaction shots after important revelations or anything, it tends to be individual characters...and Billy and Teddy. They're always standing next to each other, chatting to each other, and just generally basking in each other's presence being around each other.



Whenever one of them is hurt/injured/in danger, the other one notices. Every time. As I was rereading the series, I found one instance where one of them was in danger or injured and someone who wasn't the other one was the first to notice, and that was when the other wasn't physically present.

(If you followed that, I am impressed.)



Dude, that's like halfway to the Pieta, right there. Totally not platonic. Why, yes, Cap and Iron Man do this at several points! Also, the revelation that Teddy's not stuck in Hulk-form, but is in fact a shapeshifter.

In terms of plot, somewhere around here it's revealed that Billy isn't just a lightning-and-flying dude, but he can cast spells. Sometimes. When it works. But luckily, Teddy has some advice!



That just kills me every time.

Later on, there's some fun time-travel stuff that is too complicated to go into (OH HAI, like fifty years worth of Marvel continuity!), but the gist of it is that the timeline has changed, and Billy suddenly disappears. Teddy is displeased.



I'm pretty sure this is about where they gave up on subtlety.

After things with Kang the Conquerer are all sorted out (remember those fifty years of Marvel continuity? Yeah.), the Young Avengers ask Captain America and Iron Man (and Jessica Jones, AKA BAMF, AKA MILF) to train them.



Their faces are like two inches apart.

So Cap and Iron Man are like "oh, hell no" and Jessica Jones is secretly like "man, you guys are awesome" and they meet up again to discuss ignoring Cap and Iron Man and continuing on on this superheroing business anyway. At first, I didn't notice anything interesting about this discussion. And then I noticed Teddy's arm.



They're being physically intimate! In public! Oh, how I want to squish them.

So they decide to go ahead with the superheroing business or whatever, and there's the requisite getting-into-costume sequence as they discuss the possible ramifications (i.e. telling their parents). The first panel is Eli, but the second is Teddy:



Bwah!

Anyway, thus concludes the first arc. The second arc starts off more about Eli than anyone else, and it's definitely worth reading, but it also has this gem:



This goes exactly where you're thinking it's going:



(Ignore the weird hiccup in the image.)

Then there's a lot of stuff about Eli that, again, is worth reading, but the next big thing comes when a Super Skrull comes out of nowhere and attacks! (All you have to know is, Super Skrull = bad.) One of the Super Skrull's powers is hypnosis, and he holds Billy hostage (for all of like one panel, but still), showing that Billy is Teddy's weakness:



Or. Y'know. Not:



This is why you don't mess with Teddy's boyfriend.

(The intervening panel is exactly what you think it is: Teddy's fist being cordially introduced to the Super-Skrull's face.)

In the end, the Super-Skrull manages to kidnap Teddy (after revealing his mother to be a Skrull and then fridging her murdering her, and the team decides that they need more firepower, having lost their hard-hitter and since Eli is currently without his powers. (I, uh, skipped that part - just take my word for it.) They use a convenient plot device from the beginning of the series to locate one Thomas Shepherd, who has superspeed and can make shit blow up and looks exactly like Billy:



But more importantly, Cassie says that Teddy is Billy's boyfriend, which is freaking HUGE for Marvel Comics.



They find Teddy, and Billy immediately comforts him.



They're happy to see each other.

But Teddy and the Super-Skrull have bonded - or rather, the Super-Skrull has pretty much emotionally blackmailed Teddy with the knowledge he has of who Teddy really is, so even though the Kree are attacking and want to kill the Super-Skrull (the fifty years of Marvel backstory is back; just ignore it and it'll go away), Teddy insists on saving him. Billy wants nothing more than to get the heck out of there while his boyfriend is intact, but stays to help:



The couple that kicks ass together, stays together. And kicks lots of ass.



That doesn't stop Billy from bitching about it, though.



Kind of a lot of bitching, actually.



And some more.

Anyway, it turns out that Teddy is half-Kree and half-Skrull, two alien races that have been warring since the dawn of time, and is prophesied to be the savior of both. (This would be an appropriate moment for an awkward turtle.) To stop the fighting, Teddy agrees to go with the Kree for half a year, the Skrulls for the other half, and at the end of the year decide where he'll reside, and Cap shows his tacit approval of Teddy and Billy's relationship by comforting him.



Of course, it turns out that the Teddy that went with the Kree and the Skrulls is actually the Super-Skrull, who's done a heel face turn (for those who don't want to venture into TVTropes: well, in Whoville they say the Super-Skrull's heart grew three sizes that day!), and Teddy is safe on Earth, where he belongs.



Right next to his boyfriend.

Billy helps Teddy spread his mother's ashes, in a really sweet, emotional moment:



So then Speed (Tommy, who turns out to be Billy's twin brother - and it also turns out they're the Scarlet Witch's sons - and that's a really long story best left to Wikipedia) shows up, and what follows is too priceless for me to not just scans the whole thing:





I do have to admit that I find it pretty freaking LOLARIOUS that Patriot is riding Teddy. Like. A lot. XD

Thus concludes all of their great moments together in Young Avengers; I'll specify where everything from here on out comes from.

This one's from Young Avengers Presents, in the issue focusing on Wiccan and Speed trying to find the Scarlet Witch, their mom (kinda). The first scene is Billy narrating a dream he had involving his mom, and it's not revealed until the end who he's talking to:



Billy reveals that he wants to go try to find the Scarlet Witch, and Teddy wants to come along:



Billy then admits that Tommy's going to be coming along, since she's, you know, his mom too.



And Marvel once again metaphorically cock-blocks its only happy gay couple, this time not letting them say "I love you." GOD DAMN IT, MARVEL. D:

Teddy, being awesome and amazing and also a shapeshifter, pretends to be Billy so that his parents don't report him missing. (He never did end up coming out to them as a superhero, whoops!)



So Billy comes back after having fruitlessly searched for his mom, to find Teddy waiting for him.



I JUST WANT TO HUG THEM SO HARD. HOW ARE THEY SO ADORABLE.

I have no idea if this is chronologically next, but now I've moved on to the Civil War Runaways/Young Avengers crossover.¹

First, Karolina and Billy bond over having Skrull significant others:



After they stop fighting due to misunderstandings, they actually start communicating. Once again, there's adorable physical contact, this time coupled with Billy being an adorable science nerd:



The look on Billy's face makes it exceedingly clear just how - and when - Teddy's impatient.



And then he starts showing his boyfriend off:



In a plot-but-not-gay-related side note, Xavin uses this information to start spouting off about the same prophecy the Skrulls and Kree were talking about in Young Avengers, calling Teddy a savior and whatnot, and then the really disturbing and unhappy stuff starts and I am skipping it, my friends, to bring you back to the happy, light, fluffy, adorable moments:



Next up: The Secret Invasion Runaways/Young Avengers crossover! Basic plot outline: Skrulls attack. HIJINKS ENSUE.

As you can imagine, Teddy is kidnapped fairly early on. Billy does not react well.



And he gets a little one-minded.



Since this is a crossover, Xavin finds Teddy and rescues him, trying to get him out of the crossfire, but when Teddy wakes up, he's a bit one-minded himself.



Billy finds them, and is still pretty determined to get Teddy back.



And they're reunited!



And then a scene that makes me just flat-out melt:



So then Xavin gets them out, and as they're zooming on force-shields through the New York sewer system, are they worried? Concerned that Skrulls might be after them? Preparing for the battle at hand?

Nope. They're staring at each other.



The arc is resolved, everybody lives, Rose, just this once, et cetera.

And the last two scans, from the ongoing series Dark Reign: Young Avengers, wherein another team of registered superheroes (please don't make me relive Civil War by explaining it) takes up the mantle of Young Avengers, and they end up kinda-sorta-not really teaming up.

This is how the team is assembled when they find out about the new team:



They meet their legal counterparts, and are Not Impressed.



Part of the reason I embarked on this picspam was to address the issue of this cover for Dark Reign: Young Avengers #4. A lot of fans are...displeased, obviously, since Billy and Teddy are unbreakably OTP, but I think given the context (that the girl pictured is Diet Enchantress Enchantress Lite the Enchantress, whose powers are more than a little Siren-like), this is just going to be a standard evil-person-uses-mind-control-to-try-to-break-up-the-main-couple-but-they-survive-stronger-than-ever plot. And I'm secretly hoping that part of the making-up will be an actual on-screen kiss. (I'm being ridiculously optimistic, I know, but hey! I'm not gonna be around to be disappointed anyway, since I'll be abroad by then.)



¹ Okay, digression time. The fact of the matter is, this crossover caused a lot of controversy when it came out, and for good reason: during the course of the crossover, Karolina, Xavin, Billy, and Teddy are all captured. Do you know what they all have in common? They're all of the GLBTQ members of both teams, and everyone else escapes mostly free of harm. The reason I skipped a whole bunch of stuff, though, is more the content: after they're captured, Billy is forced to watch an evil scientist vivisect Teddy. (Teddy is unconscious, and because he's a shapeshifter, he heals himself even though he's not awake.) The whole time, Billy is trying to work a spell to save them, but due to a plot device can't; the mad scientist keeps gloating at him that he can't do anything and talking about how much study it'll take before he'll actually be able to get at Teddy's internal organs, et cetera, and it's generally gruesome and horrific. He keeps goading Billy, who's been repeating spells the whole time ("Iwanttobesomewhereelse, Iwanttobesomewhereelse", "Iwanthimtogotosleep, Iwanthimtogotosleep", et cetera), until Billy snaps and shouts "I WANT YOU TO DIE" and it's actually very disturbing and dark and that's why I didn't include it. If somebody wants to scan it for reference, that's cool, but after last week's Torchwood unhappiness, right now Billy/Teddy is my happy-fluffy-OTP, so I only did the moments that make me all warm and fuzzy inside. XD