Four years is more than enough time to convince yourself that being powerless isn't all that bad. It may be like missing a vital part of yourself, but you get used to it. Billy had lived longer without powers than he'd ever had them, anyway.

At least, that's what he tells himself on those occasions that he misses it. Some days, he forgets, just for a moment, and when he tries to do something and it doesn't work, that disappointment sets in and stays with him for a little bit.

So, when he wakes and feels the way he used to (Billy has never been able to describe it, beyond everythingispossible) he treads carefully. Veeery carefully. Teddy's still asleep, and Billy feels chilled when he moves away from his warm body. He sits up, crosses his legs, and a blue glow surrounds his fists with only the barest of thoughts. That's easy magic, one of the first things he ever learned, so Billy tampers down his excitement and tries again.

This time, he closes his eyes and thinks the mantra, one that only takes a couple of repetitions before he feels it. When he opens his eyes, Billy is hovering a few feet over their bed, Teddy directly beneath him.

"Teddy," he calls out, excitement threading through his voice, "wake up." When Teddy doesn't react quickly enough, Billy stretches his leg out and nudges his thigh. "Theodooooore."

It's not like Billy and Teddy never get time alone or go on dates regularly, but as soon as Billy attended the opening of the planetarium, he knew they had to make a date out of it.

Stars, being in the dark and science? Totally worth it.

He packs a little dinner for them in his backpack, along with a blanket and charges Teddy with carrying a pillow. Diana stays home - as much as he loves her, hyper puppies and dates don't really mix.

It was easy to get some alone time in the planetarium, and Billy grabs Teddy's hand, practically dragging him down to the center open space in excitement. The star chart is already on, and Billy cranes his neck back to get a look at the projection.

"Isn't it amazing?"

For all the anxiety they've had over the past month and doing whatever preparation they can, once the day actually comes, it's almost kind of familiar.

In a terrifying, oh god the world is ending again kind of way.

The only exception is this time, there are no powered heroes to step in to save the day. Cap and Tony can still help, but they're only two people against everyone's deepest fears and nightmares. Two guys and Thor's giant hammer, anyway.

With no powers and a couple month's worth of self-defense classes, Billy feels completely helpless as he and Teddy make their way to the New Atlantis safe zone. Being under a shield and doing nothing while people are in trouble is not their style, but without powers he can't do much to help anyone, let alone keep Teddy safe.

It's his nightmare that will eventually be coming to life today, and there's no way he'll let anything happen to Teddy. Not today, not ever. Not if he can help it, and if that means hiding under a shield for they entire day while everyone else goes off to be heroes, then so be it.

The New Atlantis shield is kind of pretty - much prettier in person than it ever looked on television - and he can hear it coming down and going back up to let people in before they even approach it. Once they're in, once the shield goes back down, a quiet settles around them and Billy relaxes a little.

This isn't exactly Billy's idea of where he'd wanted his afternoon to go, but after waking from a nightmare this morning, he's given in to Teddy's requests. Maybe spaced out, it wouldn't have been worrying -- he has nightmares, it comes with the territory. But having such specific nightmares where the main focus is his terror is a completely different animal. With all the steps the Council has been taking lately to talk to everyone, it makes sense to search them out.

And if anyone's going to make him feel any better about this, other than Teddy, it's Steve Rogers. It's not like Cap can go in his brain and punch the Skrulls back to their home planet, but simply telling him about it might help.

Billy gives Teddy one last look, and squeezes his boyfriend's hand. He loosens his grip, but after a moment of hesitation tightens it again. Teddy's often been his backbone when he needs it, and right now, Billy needs him.

He steps a little way into the Council office, poking his head in to see if anyone's actually there. Thankfully Cap is alone, and Billy only feels a slight bit of relief before he takes a deep breath. "Um...hi, Steve."

After his talk with Maxxie, Billy spends most of his walk back to the cottage feeling as though he's had a huge weight lifted off his shoulders. Not all the way off, since he still doesn't remember a chunk of his life and he still has a lot to talk about with Teddy, but still. There's some relief.

Except when he finally gets home and steps inside, all those nerves come flooding right back. There's so much to talk about and so much he wants to tell Teddy, but first things first.

"Teddy?" He calls out, and isn't surprised when he's greeted by Diana instead. He scoops her up and lets her lick his face as he looks toward the stairs. "You home?"

So, it's been only a few hours since Billy woke up to find himself in bed with a complete stranger who is supposed to be his best friend, on a magic island he'd never heard of, minus the magic powers he'd only discovered he had the day before.

Oh, and with two years of his life missing because he apparently has amnesia and is an eighteen year old with friends and a life instead of a lame fifteen year old kid who couldn't go a week in school without being picked on.

It's only Teddy's explanations and reassurance that has kept Billy from going entirely crazy since then, but the other boy still has school. He's shown Billy the basics, like how to get to the compound from his home, and what all the little buildings around it are.

He took a seat outside the bakery after Teddy went in to the school (and it was Billy's turn to be reassuring and make sure Teddy had his day go the way it should, he would be totally okay, promise), and hasn't moved since. Diana doesn't seem to find anything wrong, and she's just as playful and loving with Billy as he imagines she would normally be. Which kinda freaks him out and comforts him at the same time, because she doesn't expect anything but attention and affection from him, which Billy happily gives.

He sort of hopes to see some of the fabled fictional people Teddy's told him about, but at the same time, Billy's terrified of meeting anyone who supposedly knows him. Because he knows he's nothing like the version of himself they know, and he'll fall terribly short of their expectations.

Alright, I've been slacking on this something fierce and I SHOULD have emailed all relevant parties like, two weeks ago when it was fully decided, buuuut I suck! So that's out of the way.

Billy is my amnesia pup. I ruled all the others out because Karen is too stable to be too affected by it, Olivia would pretty much break the fuck down and be unplayable after, Peggy is stable and too cool for it, and Mace is...Mace.

Mala and I have talked out various scenarios for Billy's amnesia plot line, and some basics:

1. It'll take place all of July.

2. He'll be losing his memories all the way back to the day he found out he was a Young Avenger. So, literally a day before he meets Teddy. He'll be 15.

3. Pre-YA Billy is going to be surprised he knows more than two people on the island, and will be completely gobsmacked by anyone who says they are his friend. Obviously this means you must all thread with him.

3b. He was known as the gay kid in school and beat up for it on a daily basis, so...anyone who would want to find out about that and talk that out can take the chance now, because he'll still have a lot of anger about it at that age.

4. TEACHERS! How will Billy losing a whole month of classes work? He's in advanced classes, since he took the previous classes on the island, but he'll be reverting back to a 15 year old mind, so...no knowledge and no ability to take his classes. His classes are here.

Those are the basics I have for now. There's one personal plot we have worked out already, but otherwise, Billy is completely open for anything you guys want to work with. I want to pre-play a LOT of this, because July is Comic Con month and I usually don't have the time or inclination to tag for the two weeks around SDCC.

So. Thoughts? Plot ideas? Flailing? COME AT ME, LET'S TALK.

Billy can't really see where it makes much sense that Teddy gets an iPad and he gets a bicycle.

Sure, it'd be nice to not have to walk everywhere, and it looks like a pretty cool bike, but all that doesn't matter one bit when he has to figure out how to put it all together. Not only did the island gods provide in strange ways, they made him work for it.

The parts of Billy's bike have been spread out on their little porch for a day and a half now, the bike slowly looking more like it should the more Billy puts into it. At least, so far he has something that looks like a bike without wheels. Billy can only hope it doesn't end up falling the moment he tries to ride it.

"You should just start mourning me now," he grumbles as he looks over the blueprints again, too long hair falling into his eyes. "I'm gonna end up running into a tree."

Though it's the big 1-8, as the night progresses Billy's found he enjoys the small celebration Teddy's thrown together for him. It doesn't live up to any of Chris's raves and there's no big drama to deal with; just most of his favorite friends, a cake to eat and only a few card games forced on them by request from the birthday boy. The party is more than Billy could have hoped for, and it's the wee hours of the morning before he and Teddy see the last person off.

Any decent look he may have had is gone by now, Billy's clothes mostly rumpled and half the layers discarded thanks to the warmth of the house and the few drinks he's had. "That was great," he tells Teddy, leaning back against the front door once it's closed. "Thank you."

Though too distracted by exploring their new surroundings with Teddy to remember school on the first day of winter, Billy makes an effort to show up for his next day of classes, with only a few stops along the way. Though he and Teddy had followed the little map and found the compound and other familiar but not buildings around it, Billy was still fascinated by the change. He'd spirited Teddy away to a few places back home thanks to his magic, and though they'd done London one date night, it had been all modern -- nothing like the kind of creepy, Victorian, boxed in London they found themselves in.

But Billy tries to keep his mind on normal things like school (as far as anything can be normal, when you're suddenly attending classes in a school building that had probably been built in the 1700s), and makes plans to meet Teddy up at the compound for lunch before his afternoon classes.

Dressed in a lot more layers than he was accostumed to under his black great coat, Billy barely feels the chill when he opens the main school door. The wind bites at his cheeks and nose and his red scarf flaps behind him, but it's still a thrill, hearing the sounds of a city (old and fake as it may be when looked at too closely) instead of the rustle of trees and beach.