"Ted. This is kind of a bad time." Billy hated to say that. He knew Teddy wouldn't take it personally, because Teddy had been an Avenger as long Billy and knew all about bad times, but.

But this was the first time Teddy had called him in two weeks and Billy was dying, here, dying of lack of boyfriend time. He was dead. He was a superhero zombie.

(Actually, Cassie and Vision were the superhero zombies, if anyone, but last time he said that no less than four people had tried to hit him and Kate succeeded so. No more zombie jokes.)

(Except Cassie had laughed and he still counted that as a win, anyway.)

Still: Dying. Boyfriendless. Stuck on a terrible planet, because any planet would be terrible without Teddy and Earth was currently sans-Ted. Ted-free. Ted deprived. It was possible Billy was going into withdraw, and really that was the only excuse he had as to why he had even answered his phone in the middle of a fight with a Nazi made of bees and gotten himself stung a few times.

Captain America probably didn't have these problems.

On the other end of the line, Teddy was silent, but he hadn't yet disconnected the transgalactic magic phone. Billy couldn't blame him; it would probably be another two weeks before they could try again, and there was no guarantee that it wouldn't be in the middle of another fire fight, just like it was this time and the two times before that.

Seriously, Billy's life choices.

"Ted?" He asked, when he had enough room between him and Swarm to breathe. "Still there?"

"Still here," Teddy agreed. "Probably not for long. It's cutting in and out."

"I'm sorry," Billy said, and he meant it even if it sounded a bit defensive because he was once again running. From bees. "I'm sorry."

"It's just. I'm stuck on Coruscant, here." That should probably win some kind of award for most nonsensical thing Teddy ever said to him, but no, this was their lives they were talking about. Billy made a noncommittal noise as he tried to nonverbally summon a forcefield. "And it should be awesome but everything I see I want to show you, or tell you about, but I can't because you're not here."

And every time Teddy called, Billy was being a superhero, like a complete jerk and terrible boyfriend. Resisting the urge to scream, Billy said: "Ted? Hold on for like, two seconds, okay?"

He took Teddy's slightly annoyed silence as an agreement and tucked the phone back into the hidden pocket under his cape so that he could completely free up his hands to make wide, theatrical hand motions that summoned the largest bug zapper ever. People could probably see the thing in New Jersey, and Billy was all out of fucks to give.

No one would be worrying about Swarm for a long time, judging by the burning smell.

"Still there?"

"Still here," Teddy confirmed.

"Awesome. I'm all yours. So: on a scale of one to Han Solo, how worried to I have to be that you're going to run away with a Jedi?"

.end.