School had been a little weird since that thing with the Avengers. Billy hadn't had to go back until everything blew over, more or less, but people were actually kind of being decent. Whatever Captain America (he hadn't quite gotten to the point of calling him Steve, and Mr. Rogers was just… no) said had stuck, and people were actually kind of checking their privilege and calling people out on stuff.

Billy didn't really expect it to last, but for the moment, he could actually shove his homework and textbooks into his backpack without getting it slammed in his face or stolen. It didn't stop the teachers from confiscating his phone when he got caught checking yamblr and twitter for news. When he closed his locker, there was a dark-haired guy watching him curiously. Billy jumped, and the guy held his hands up defensively.

"Sorry. I was just wondering if you're William Kaplan?"

Billy narrowed his eyes. "Yeeeeessss?" He drew out the s, trying to buy himself time to figure out just what the hell was going on.

"This is going to sound crazy, but I really need your help. I'm Nathaniel Richards, and I'm from the future."

This went under the too-crazy-to-be-lying category, in Billy's opinion. Maybe Wanda'd know more about what he was talking about. "Oh-kay then. Let's… go see what all this is about," he said slowly, edging towards the door. "C'mon. I have to get my phone back first." Though they gave Nate a strange look, the principal's assistant did give him his phone back.

He called his mom on the way, leaving a message to say he'd decided to hang out with a friend for a while. Then he sent a text to Wanda that read, 'Weird kid school. Know a Nathaniel Richards? Going to CenPk.' He stuffed his phone back in his pocket and wheeled his bike along. "So if this is a trick to get me somewhere and kidnap me, that's a seriously bad idea."

Nathaniel held his hands up again, then glanced around. They were in a quieter area of the park. "Look. It sounds crazy, but I'm really from the 30th century and I'm trying to stop my future self from becoming Kang the Conqueror. Or me, I guess. I mean, it's complicated, and the Avengers aren't here, and so the Vision asked me to-" A sigh. "It's easier to just show you." He suddenly shifted from clothes that wouldn't get him a second glance in the halls to something Billy recognized from his Avengers fanboying days: purple, green, and blue, with a weird helmet. "I swear I'm not lying. I need your help, because if the Avengers aren't here, then I need to make sure I can do something more than run away from myself. And you could be a hero."

Billy'd been trying to interrupt through all of this, but the last part knocked his thoughts askew. "What do you mean, the Avengers aren't here? And Vision?" Oh, awkward. "And why are you asking me? Not that I don't want to be a hero or anything, but how did you even find- oh wait, Vision, right, but-" Billy held up both his hands, more to stop himself than anything else, propping his bike against his hip. "-never mind. I'll help. Especially if it means that we get the Avengers back." He paused. "Nathaniel, right? Call me Billy."

"Nate. Thank you." There really was no way to feign that amount of relief in Nathaniel's expression. Nate stopped. "Uh… what do you do, exactly?"

"It's complicated."

"We cannot help with the Visigoths," Thor explained to the centurion. "God I may be, but this is not this time's seeming, nor may we interfere with this time's flow."

The centurion was innocent of whatever'd brought them to the 5th century, but was attempting to recruit them into service of the Empire, attempting to prevent the sacking of Rome. Wanda was listening to as many of the conversations as she could manage, drawing on similar languages and her polygot tendencies. "They're getting very annoyed," she said as a quiet aside to Pietro.

"They've been annoyed since we got here. Hopefully Stark's got the time-travel device reverse-engineered in the next day or so," he murmured back.

She leaned against him. "I'm getting very tired of being an outcast again," she admitted. The soldiers never failed to clutch charms when she passed by, or start murmuring prayers. "I'll go see if I can't encourage Tony's efforts. Even if he does think it's cheating and invalidating future research."

Pietro squeezed her shoulders in a hug. There wasn't really more to say.

Once they'd reached Central Park, they took one of the paths heading for the wilder northern parts, because then at least they'd be less likely to be noticed.

Unfortunately, they were blocked by police tape. "Hey, what's going on?" Billy asked an officer, craning his neck to try to get a glimpse of what was beyond.

"Sorry, can't really say, kid." The officer flicked his cap's brim back to peer at him curiously. "You another fanboy?"

"Uh…" Billy looked helplessly at Nate, who looked somewhere between confused and amused. "Avengers fanboy? Sorta?"

"Hm." The officer, whose nametag read Michaels, D., glanced over his shoulder towards the cluster of officers. "Not going to say anything officially-"

"But is it true that the majority of the on-duty Avengers vanished while fighting, of all things, a Roman legion here last night?" The woman who'd spoken up was comfortably plump, pretty, and waving a smartphone around as if it contained the notes for world domination. "It's news, and the Daily Bugle needs it!"

Billy just felt chilled. If the press had already picked up that the Avengers were gone, people'd be coming out of the woodwork to cause trouble. "... okay, that whole helping-you thing has gotten pretty important all of a sudden," he said to Nate, turning away from the scene. "Is it just you and me?"

"No, there're a few others in New York. One's already at our, uh, base."

"We have a base?" Billy looked skeptical. It was New York City. Space was at a premium.

Nate shrugged. "Vision showed me the way to one of the Avengers' old storage warehouses. I think Hawkeye or someone used it as a cache or bolthole, because there's a lot of really archaic weapons there. I mean, more than just gunpowder-propelled projectile weapons." He seemed unaware of the odd look Billy gave him here. "Though it was kind of a neat history lesson. This whole thing would be, if it weren't for Kang." The brief enthusiasm sparked by old-fashioned weapons died, and Nate's shoulders slumped. Billy sighed and bumped his shoulder against Nate's.

"We'll figure it out. So, who else is on your list?"

"We've got someone with the super-soldier serum - he's the one already at our base - and then there's someone named 'Theodore Altman.'"

Billy didn't quite know what to make of that, and there was a little voice in the back of his head (it sounded like his mom) telling him to allow his estranged family to approach him instead of the other way around.

They'd tracked Theodore Altman down to just outside the Avengers Mansion, but when they arrived, Tony Stark was standing there with the kind of teenager that pinged on Billy's asshole-alert. None of this made sense.

JARVIS was refusing entry to the pair, which was another thing that didn't make sense. "... retinal scan does not match Sir's on-record scan; please desist. Your retinal scan has been retained for evidence."

Tony turned to his companion, pulling his hands out of his pockets. "See. Told you it wouldn't work."

"Ehh, what the hell's a computer going to do to us? The Avengers aren't here, let's just hop the gate. I want to grab some stuff!" The Asshole gestured to the gates. "Shit, I bet you could just take it all out anyway."

'Tony' drew back. "I'm not breaking into Avengers Mansion to steal stuff!" He hadn't noticed Nate and Billy approaching, and neither had Asshole. "If that's what you want, get lost!"

"You sure about that? You don't want your secret spread all around school…" And there it was. Billy was familiar with that tone, and already moving forward, grasping the threads of could-be and murmuring under his breath.

It wasn't needed. Suddenly, 'Tony' shifted into a huge, hulking, spiky monster. "Sure. Tell them all I'm a monster. See how far you get with that before you see what a real monster might do."

Asshole scrambled back, and fled. The monster watched him go, then sighed. "Not like I haven't got more important stuff to hide," he muttered, then stiffened, looking at Billy, who had halted a short distance away. "Look-"

Billy shook his head, then held up one hand. It was still glimmering with his power, and looked oddly translucent for a moment. "I was coming to back you up."

JARVIS took this chance to speak up. "Young Sir, if you would remove the intruder before I have to follow protocol and call the authorities, it would benefit all concerned."

"Who's he talking to?"

Billy let his hand drop. "Me. The Scarlet Witch is my-" He hesitated a brief moment. "-trainer. So JARVIS knows me. Look, he's serious, and-"

Nate approached, wearing something that looked like an Iron Man suit. "We've got something to discuss with you, Theodore Altman. We need your help."

The boy with the Super-Soldier serum turned out to be the grandson of the black Captain America who everyone denied being real (but Billy knew how history got changed depending on who wrote it), and had a chip on his shoulder the size of the Empire State Building. "Found the rest of your list?" he demanded as soon as Nate walked in with Billy and Theodore (who'd been quiet during the trip over) trailing behind him.

"All the ones in New York, at least," Nate said, with far more patience than Billy'd have. "Okay. Theodore-"

"Teddy," Theodore interrupted. "Just… 'Teddy'." His skin rippled, and there was a square-jawed blond boy standing there in ripped jeans and a white t-shirt, with several ear-piercings. Billy blinked, feeling a bit of a flush creeping up his cheeks.

"... Teddy, then." Nate took off his helmet. "I'm from the future, and if we don't get the Avengers back, I'm going to become a super-villain. Everyone here is a part of a list of people with connections to the Avengers, and, I assume, powers. We can get them back and prevent me from becoming Kang."

Billy perched on a crate stamped with the Stark Industries logo. "I already said I'm in. This is a little too weird to be fake, and the Scarlet Witch is my trainer - I kinda need her back." He found himself reluctant to say more than that. From Teddy's expression, eyebrows raised and blue eyes skeptical, he was having trouble with this explanation. To shift the topic a bit, he added, "I do magic. And I do pretty well with electricity."

"As far as I know, I don't have any kind of tie to the Avengers. My mom sells real estate and loves her self-help books. Powers - figured I was just a mutant," Teddy said, shaking his head. He tossed a glance Billy-wards. "I shapeshift. Super-strength, I guess."

"Any plan for this save-the-Avengers, save-the-future idea?" Eli asked. "Or even how we're supposed to work together on this?"

Light gleamed from Nate's gauntlet, outlining a spectral Vision. "May I suggest trying something smaller to begin with? The media has realized that the Avengers are no longer on-site, so to speak, and have been less than discreet in reporting this. The NYPD and FDNY are responding well, but there are things that they are unable to handle."

"Aaaaand there's the issue of costumes. And what we're going to call ourselves…" Teddy shrugged. "Not that costumes're hard for me. But for you guys…"

Vision spoke up again. "There are numerous artifacts kept here for study or simply as trophies. You may find appropriate pieces to create what you might consider costumes."

"Dude, I look like a cross between Thor and Loki here," Billy complained, touching the winged headband and staff.

Teddy flashed a grin across the room at him. "Looks good, though." His skin rippled, and he suddenly bulked out and turned green, the black leather shifting with him. "Doubt you want your trainer's costume."

He still hadn't really explained the whole lost-soul thing to the others, just that the Scarlet Witch was teaching him. "I dunno, I look pretty good in red. The pink, though, pass."

Eli pulled his hood over his head. Billy'd suggested the proper Bucky mask, but Eli'd said he had his reasons. They knew he was a super-soldier. He grumbled as he picked at the seams of the gloves, testing the fit carefully. "Damn," he muttered. "Why'd I agree to this?"

Nate had it the easiest. He thought for a moment, then his armor shifted to red-and-silver, reminiscent of Iron Man. "There."

The wail of sirens brought them out of their startlement. Billy floated upwards, looking out the grimy windows. "Crap. There's a building on fire."

Eli stiffened, then snapped, "Let's go. Nate, you get on stopping the fire. Billy, do something that'll tell us how many people are still in there. Teddy, you and me - evacuation."

The next day, "YOUNG AVENGERS?" was splashed across the front page of the Daily Bugle.

Yes, Yamblr is (according to the second YA series) the Marvel version of Tumblr. I figured Billy'd probably be there.