Chapter 9:

10. Billy Kaplan is not allowed to hire Deadpool to kidnap Tommy - #90

11. Billy Kaplan is not allowed to become a supervillain - #106

12. Billy Kaplan is not allowed to encourage Tommy to become a supervillain - #107

There was a feeling in the air. It was a bad, irking, prickling feeling, and Logan couldn't shake it off.

"C'mon," he finally growled, snagging Clint by the collar as the archer slunk by and dragging him out the door of the mansion.

"Whoa, man!" Clint asked as he straightened his shirt and jogged after the mutant. "Where're we goin'?"

"We're gonna find the Speed kid, and likely whatever it was Billy was tryin' ta keep secret," Logan answered gruffly, pausing in his stride to sniff the air, before growling deep in his throat and starting forward again. "Stupid kids."

Clint was clutching his bow, a quiver of arrows on his back. "You gotta scent?"

"Oh yeah."

Billy and Tommy basically had the same scent, and they seemed to have the same preferences regarding shampoos and colognes, but emotions left distinct traces as well, and in that the two twins were easy to tell apart.

The speedster felt so fast that the emotions in his scent was undistinguished, like every moment he was feeling every possible emotion and constantly suppressing them all, there and gone again, the rainbow of pastel colors smearing and blurring into bright white.

The mage, on the other hand, felt emotions very keenly, dark colors of a lurid intensity.

If Tommy was the high, clear blue sky of midday that was zigzagged with contrails, then Billy was the low sky of sunrise and sunset, intense reds and oranges and pinks and golds and violets and blacks, hung with heavy, dark clouds.

And right now, Billy's scent reeked with maroon guilt and a smoky shade of fear.

Wolverine followed the fading contrails.

"That's cool but if your friends ask where you are I'm gonna say: he ran into a live telephone wire, got burned alive in a fire, got crushed by a monster truck tire, help me help me, I'm all out of rhyyyymes, and ways to say you diiiiieeeeed!"

"Oy!" Tommy said as he ran around the warehouse with a fire extinguisher, spraying at the leaping flames, "How about: 'he tried to jump over a barbed wire fenced, got impaled on the tusk of an elephant, disobeyed the law of gravity and fell right off the planet!'"

"Ooh, good one!" Deadpool said, also sporting a fire extinguisher, though he was spraying himself about just as much as the flames, if not more; which, since he didn't have superspeed, was probably the only thing keep him from catching on fire. "How about: 'he got strangled with a bandanna, slipped on a banana, got sliced into pieces with a katana!'"

"Help me help me, I'm no good at goodbyyyyes," Tommy sang, still running around even though his way-too-big shirt had caught flame.

"So instead I'll just say that you diiiieeeed! Got shocked by an electric eel, slipped on a banana peel—"

"You already said that one!"

"—tripped and fell into a vat of molten steel!"

"Help me help me—!"

The smoke alarm finally triggered, and the showerheads on the ceiling went off, spraying them and the flames with chocolate sauce.

"Dammitnotagain!"

Smoke was pouring out of the warehouse windows as Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch arrived, Pietro blowing up the door and setting his sister down, Wanda with hands clenched at her sides, fists surrounded by a red aura.

They found Deadpool and Speed standing in the middle of the warehouse that was smoldering, but no longer on fire, Tommy shirtless, covered in chocolate sauce, and beating the last of flames with a half-burnt shirt that looked far too large for him, while Deadpool was hopping around on one foot and holding the toes of his other. There was a mustache and a goatee drawn onto his mask.

"Curses upon Odin's beard! CURSES, I say! Upon his beard!" Then he hopped on a burnt banana peel and his foot flew out from under him and he fell forward onto his mustachioed and goateed face.

Well, Deadpool certainly wasn't any kind of threat at the moment.

"Thomas!" Wanda said, waving a hand and causing the last of the flames to blow out even as she ran over to her son and embraced him, despite the fact that he was covered in chocolate sauce.

"Oh hi Mom! UghIreallydon't understandwhyeverybody loveshugssomuch. Mom, I kind of need to breathe."

Pietro just stood in the doorway with his arms crossed, expression calculating and cold.

Just then, Billy and Teddy landed outside, hurrying into the warehouse—

"Fire burn and cauldron bubble! Something Wiccan this way comes!" Deadpool shouted from where he was lying on the floor.

"Uh oh," Billy said, brown eyes blowing wide as everybody in the warehouse turned to stare at him.

The mage raised his hands placatingly. "Okay, look—"

"William how could you?!" Wanda said furiously, striding forward with fists clenched and eyes glinting. "Your own brother! Your twin! How could you?!"

"I'm sure Wiccan had a good reason," Pietro said, suddenly standing by Wanda and putting a hand on her shoulder, reigning her in. "And I hardly think that losing our tempers is going to assist this situation."

Taking a deep breath, Wanda closed her eyes, calming herself down before she turned on Billy once more, saying evenly, "William, why did you hire Deadpool to kidnap Thomas?"

By this time Billy had ducked behind Teddy, and was now hiding behind the hulking green alien. "He wouldn't stop annoying me! I just wanted him to leave me alone for a while!"

"And you had to hire one of the most dangerous and definitely the craziest mercenaries in the universe to kidnap him?!" Wanda demanded, infuriated.

"I'm flattered, seriously! How many people need the world's most dangerous and insane mercenary to capture them? That's a compliment right there!" Tommy proclaimed, at the exact same moment that Deadpool got to his knees, eyes dream and hands clasped over his heart as he sang, "You drive me craaaazy, I just can't sleep! Ohhhh, craaaazy! But it feels alriiiiiight! Baby, thinkin' of you keeps me up all night!"

"William, what were you thinking?" Wanda continued during the same moment.

While simultaneously Pietro spoke, squeezing her shoulder and saying, "I'm sure Tommy did something to deserve it. And nobody seems to have gotten hurt. Although Deadpool might, if he keeps singing to you." He sent the mercenary an frigid, icy glare.

"Can we all just calm down?" Teddy said reasonably, raising his voice to be heard over the din of everyone else talking at once as he shrank from his large green alien form back into his human one, commanding their attention. "Tommy seems to be okay, so can we all just put down our weapons and quiet our powers, and talk this out, like civilized human beings?"

"You know what I've noticed?" Deadpool interrupted, standing up off the ground and dusting the ash off his spandex. "Quicksilver, Speed, the speedsters—they don't have any weapons. I mean, everybody else has weapons, all the other Avengers—Thor has his hammer, Captain America has his shield, Hawkeye has his bow and arrows, Wolverine has his claws, Black Widow has her guns and her Widow's Bites, Iron Man has his suits, Captain Marvel has her energy blasts, Wiccan and the Scarlet Witch here have their magic, which is wielded like a weapon, and even Spiderman has his webs—but you speedsters never have any weapons. What's up with that? Don't you think maybe you'd be more respected and less derided as having a pathetic power if you carried swords around or something? Your suits don't even have pockets! Or pouches!"

And then Tommy was standing there with his arms crossed, expression strangely dark and serious. "We don't need weapons. We are living weapons."

Which maybe would have been an intense moment that left people wondering, if Deadpool didn't immediately shatter it with the glib comment: "Well, so am I! I know so many ways to kill a person with my bare hands that I can't even count them! But I still carry swords, and guns, and grenades, and anything else that might be handy, like string and bubblegum and paperclips, and the occasional origami crane made out of metal-edged paper."

And then, much to everyone's surprise, Tommy grinned and started singing, "He had his throat slit by an origami crane, drowned trying to drink the rain, crashed when he tried to pilot a fighter plane!"

"Help me help me, I'm all out of goodbyyyyyes!" Deadpool started singing as well, gesturing dramatically, one hand to his heart and the other raised into the air.

Tommy spun in a circle with his hands on his hips, doing a sort of can-can dance and kicking his feet into the air. "And ways to say you diiiiieeeeed!"

"Oh great," Billy groaned, head falling into his hands. "What have I done?! Tommy is even crazier now!"

Wolverine was able to track Tommy's scent back to the speedster's apartment. Snikiting out a claw, Logan slipped it into the lock, turning the knob and opening the door—

"Shit! Deadpool's been here!"

Because of course the Merc with a Mouth had been kind enough to leave his face on everything and make it blaringly obvious.

Clint, looking over the shorter man's shoulder and taking in the Deadpool'd apartment, muttered, "Well, this looks bad."

Logan turned and left, snarling under his breath. "So that's what it was. Billy hired Wilson to abduct his brother. Stupid kids."

"Ooh, are we taking the Quinjet?" Clint chirped eagerly as he followed after Wolverine with a bounce in his step. "I call I get to fly it!"

"William you are in so much trouble!"

Billy ducked behind his boyfriend again. "Help me!" he squeaked.

"And you!" Wanda snapped, turning on Deadpool, "You are not to have anything to do with my sons ever again, do you hear me?!"

"Hey, don't blame me!" Deadpool protested said, raising his gloved palms, "I was just doing what I was paid to do! And besides, I'm the one who called you and informed you about what your sons were up to!" He seemed to pout slightly behind the mask. "All I get is the blame, the blame, the blame, no credit."

"Which reminds me," Tommy said, turning to his brother with a curious, somewhat impish smirk on his face. "How did you obtain the money to hire Deadpool to kidnap me?"

Everybody looked at Wiccan.

"Um," he swallowed, glancing down and scratching at the back of his head, dark hair falling into his face. "I..."

Up in the Quinjet, Wolverine received a call from Captain America.

"Logan," came Steve's voice over the speakerphone.

"Cap," Logan stated. "Ya need somethin', bub?"

"I'm calling on the behalf of Fury to ask if you have any knowledge regarding a large amount of money that was stolen from S.H.I.E.L.D. earlier today."

"Hey! I think I see our location!" Clint called from the pilot's seat, gesturing down through the window at a smoking warehouse.

"I have a speculation," Logan told Cap gruffly, eyeing the warehouse as Clint brought the Quinjet to a landing a few hundred feet away, the vehicle settling on the ground and the door lowering open. "I'll get back t'ya when I know more."

"Thanks, Lo—"

Logan ended the call and jumped out of the Quinjet.

"You WHAT?!" Wanda exclaimed, magic flashing red in her eyes.

And then—BOOM!

The pyrotechnic equipment spontaneously exploded in a huge fireball, and Pietro was grabbing Wanda and running out, and Teddy was grabbing Billy and transforming into his winged alien form and flapping quickly out the door, and Tommy was grabbing Deadpool and speeding out, and the warehouse burst up in flames behind them as they sought refuge in the woods not too far off.

Speed set the mercenary down.

"You saved Deadpool?" Billy asked his brother, somewhat aghast, as Teddy swept out of the sky and dropped to the ground beside them, lowering Billy carefully. "You know he would've survived, right?"

"I wasn't just gonna leave him in there!" Tommy snapped. "Just 'cause he heals doesn't mean he doesn't feel pain, you know."

Deadpool blinked. "Wow, you're really a superhero, aren't you?" he said to Tommy. "That's almost too bad. You could make a great mercenary! Just a little more practice killing people..."

"I'm not gonna be a mercenary!" Tommy huffed, crossing his arms.

"It pays well," Deadpool pointed out. "You can make lots of moneeeeyyy! Money money money! Throw some money, make it rain!"

"Yeah, Tommy, I think you'd make a great supervillain," Billy said, rather spitefully. "And then I could throw hex bolts at you without getting into trouble."

"William! You are not allowed to encourage Tommy to become a supervillain!" came Wanda's voice.

The four of them glanced over to see Pietro return with Wanda still held in his arms, having kept running until Wanda had told him that she was okay and she'd calmed down and he could take her back and she wouldn't accidentally blow anything else up.

"Fine," Billy grumped. Then he brightened, brown eyes sparking as he said, "Then, can I become a supervillain so that it would be acceptable etiquette to use my magic against Tommy?"

"No," Wanda said firmly as Pietro gently set her down. "You are not allowed to become a supervillain. Especially not for the sole purpose of fighting your brother."

"Don't worry, he won't," Teddy said, crossing his muscular green arms over his chest as he looked at his boyfriend, eyes that were normally blue but were currently an olive green narrowing slightly. "Because then he'd have to fight me, too, because I would never become a supervillain."

Billy sighed. "Yeah..." he said, brushing a strand of dark hair behind his ear and glancing down at the ground. "No, I would never become a supervillain, either."

"I dunno," a voice growled, ans they all turned to see Wolverine stalking over, Hawkguy right beside him. "Wiccan seems ta be doin' a pretty good job. An' considerin' the fact that y'all hangin' out with the Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, an' Deadpool..."

"As if there wasn't enough drama as it were!" Tommy remarked, throwing up his hands at the arrival of the two other Avengers and rolling his eyes. "Tempers temper tempers!"

Everybody started talking at once, arguing loudly, aggressively.

Tommy however ignored the fighting and waved at Deadpool, who was tactfully taking his leave.

Deadpool gave him a wink and a thumbs-up sign.

Once Wade had slipped some was off through the trees, he pressed a button on his belt, teleporting back to his apartment where he'd been watching TV until he'd been called up and hired by Wiccan.

Taking off his mustachioed and goateed mask, Wade tossed it aside, sitting down on the couch and grabbing the remote, turning the TV on.

[That was fun!]

[You know, Speed is one of the only people we've ever met who never told us to shut up.]

[Aside from all the people who didn't have time to tell us to shut up before we killed them.]

[Yeah, aside from them. And maybe also Cable.]

"So?" Deadpool asked, idly clicking through the channels.

[So, let's listen to the Scarlet Witch and not have anything to do with him again. We end up hurting all our friends.]

[Yeah, we're a bastard like that.]

Deadpool grabbed the phone from the kitchen table. "Good for us," he said offhandedly, dialing in a number. "Now I'm gonna order some chimichangas! Chiiimiiiichaaangaaas!"

[Pizza's better.]

[HOW DARE YOU?! CHIMICHANGAS ARE THE BEST!]

"TRAITOR!" Deadpool shouted.

By this time, the guy who took orders at the chimichanga place had answered the phone, hearing Wade's outburst and saying, "Excuse me?"

[We have the lamest ending scenes.]

While the adults all argued, rather heatedly, Tommy tapped his brother on the shoulder.

"So, Billy," he said. "I'm gonna go run to your house and steal a pair of your clothes, okay?" he gestured at himself, indicating his lack of shirt, and the baggy, chocolate-sauce-covered sweatpants that were tied around his waist, the cuffs of the legs rolled up several times to reveal his bare feet. "Deadpool kind of filled my wardrobe with Deadpool clothes, and he didn't pay any attention to the sizing, so they're all either too big or too small."

Before Billy could answer, Tommy had raced off.

Which left Billy and Tommy with a bunch of angry Avengers (and former-Avengers, in the case of Quicksilver).

"Her son stole money from S.H.I.E.L.D. an' hired the lunatic Deadpool to kidnap his brother!"

"Don't tell me how to deal with my own children!"

"Oh? Not much earlier today ya were askin' for parentin' advice!"

"Don't you dare talk to my sister that way! And when it comes to parenting, you are one to speak!"

"Yeah? Well, so're you!"

"Um, guys? Am I really the only adult here without children? Really?"

Groaning, Billy wrapped his arms around Teddy and buried his face in his boyfriend's shoulder. "I am so screwed."

Teddy just held him and didn't say anything.

Wolverine and Quicksilver got into a shouting match.

Hawkguy tried, fruitlessly, to keep the peace.

The Scarlet Witch started freaking out, and accidentally made a tree almost fall on all of them.

In the end, Quicksilver, with his sister's urging, let the issue go and ran off. The rest of them got into the Quinjet, and Hawkguy piloted it back to the Avengers Mansion, where they found Tommy waiting for them, wearing one of Billy's black long-sleeved shirts, and a pair of Billy's dark jeans, and Billy's sneakers, which happened to be black and red. He also appeared to have showered, as he was no longer cover in chocolate sauce.

And then Wanda forced Billy to go hug his brother and apologize, and she forced Tommy to stay still for the hug and stick around to hear the apology.

"Seriously, what is with everybody and hugging?" Tommy complained. "And so sentimental! And everyone keeping grudges! Ugh! Everything turned out okay, can we all just move on already?"

Basically, Billy wasn't allowed to hire Deadpool to kidnap Tommy ever again. EVER. Or very bad things would happen. Also, as punishment, both Billy and Tommy had to help Jarvis with chores around the mansion—which really wasn't that bad, all things considered (it was Captain America's idea; he was hoping it would force them to work together and get along).

S.H.I.E.L.D. had to let Deadpool keep the money, because they owed him the cash, anyway.

And Wanda decreed that Billy had to find some way to make it up to his twin.

"What does she want me to do?! I already apologized to him!" Billy ranted to his boyfriend, pacing his bedroom, Teddy haven taken his window seat. "And he already said I was forgiven and that I should forget about it!"

Teddy shrugged. "Get him a present or something."

"What present could I possibly get Tommy that he would want?!"

"A starbucks card?" Teddy suggested, raising his blond eyebrows. "Or maybe a video camera?"

Billy snorted. "I love you, you know that?" he said, grinning at Teddy.

A smirk. "Yes, but why don't you show me again?"

Billy kissed him.

And then: "Hey lovebirds!" Tommy said, appearing there in the room, white hair a tangled, wind-swept mess, wearing his Speed outfit, hands on his hips as he looked at them. "Stop making out and get over to the mansion! Jarvis wants us to rake the leaves in the garden, and I was thinking we could make a huge pile of leaves and see whether they're actually any fun to jump into, and then maybe we could have a leaf fight and scatter them all around the yard again so we could rake them into a pile again so we wouldn't have to do a more dreary chore like the cleaning the dishes or waxing the Quinjet or something."

Pulling away from his boyfriend, Billy groaned in exasperation, while Teddy just chuckled.

"You can help if you want, Teddy, 'cause I know you like being helpful like that," Tommy added, while poking his brother. "So, you geriatrics coming or not?"

And then Tommy zipped off again.

"You know," Billy mused, as he looked thoughtfully at the spot where his twin had just been, before glancing at his boyfriend and smirking. "What do you say to me giving Tommy a starbucks card and a video camera, and then watching him drive the entire mansion crazy?"

Teddy grinned. "Well, if you don't mind Tommy driving us crazy as well," he pointed out.

"Well, he's my twin," Billy shrugged, still smiling. "I think I'll learn to put up with it."

"C'mon, what's taking you two so long?!" Tommy demanded, appearing again and proceeding to grab their arms and pull on them, managing to drag Billy part way to the door, but getting absolutely nowhere with Teddy. "Aww, to hell with this!"

Tommy picked up his twin and raced off.

"Hey!" Teddy protested, leaping to his feet and opening the window enough to jump out, landing on the ground and turning into his Hulkling form, spreading his wings and taking off into the sky towards the Avengers Mansion.

Epilogue:

13. Starbucks cards are not appropriate presents for Tommy - #98

14. Billy Kaplan is not allowed to give Tommy a video camera - #148d

"Why does Tommy seem like someb'dy gave 'im an endless supply'a caffeine?! An' why does he have a video camera?!"

THE END.

AN: Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it even a portion of as much as I enjoyed writing! 'Cause I really, REALLY enjoyed writing this ;D

(Wow though, there's really like nobody in this fandom... o_o What's up with that? The Young Avengers are awesome!)

Once more: a HUGE thanks to K. A. Maples for her story, and for giving me permission to write this! And a huge thanks to everybody who added to her list!

Anyways. If you're reading this and feel inclined to review, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this story!