With art by AltheaK! Our official promo/posting date is tomorrow, but I can't resist. Tommy and Darcy's side of things from Profs!AU. Now with Het smut!
Fandom: Young Avengers
Rating: Explicit (M/F)
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Darcy Lewis/Tommy Shepherd
Characters: Darcy Lewis, Tommy Shepherd, Billy Kaplan, Teddy Altman, Jane Foster, Wendy Kawasaki, Pepper Potts
Summary:
Darcy Lewis had a list. The items on the list changed as she got older, but the title never did. And Tommy-goddamn-Shepherd was never, ever going to be ‘Mr. Right.’
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Young Avengers
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Teddy Altman/Billy Kaplan
Characters: Teddy Altman (Young Avengers), Billy Kaplan
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Schmoop, nothing but schmoop, boys are dorks
Series: Part 4 of Profs!AU
Summary:
At some point, Teddy figures, they're going to have to grow up. Do grown-up stuff, like plan for the future. Billy didn't see it coming.
I've got about 20 pages of copy edits to enter, and then Take Me Home is so fucking DONE. 35,000 words, so I'll have to figure out where to put a chapter break, and in two weeks it goes up for "anonymous" (heh) art claim (sorry) on the WIP Big Bang page.
... I'm the only one writing this pairing on the planet, so it's not like it was going to be any kind of anonymous anyway. [shrugs]
I think they're still short artists, so if anyone liked Profs!AU and feels like doing some doodles for Darcy/Tommy, keep an eye out on the summaries when claims open. [whistles innocently].
(Honestly I want all fan artists to go check them out and sign up, because there are going to be lots of amazing stories looking for art. Be part of a great collab with someone cool! WIP Big Bang.)
Uggggggh. Entering the copy editing stage for 'Take Me Home,' which means slowly covering an 80-page printout in red pen and drowning in self-loathing.
On the plus side, it means I have a finished (bad) draft?
Ugggggggh. I am having the HARDEST time getting motivated to finish my WIP big bang fic. I just. 29,000 words in, another 10k to go, probably, and I just can't. get. motivated.
I think a large part of it is knowing that only something like five people are actually going to read it. It's a het pairing, that only I ship, for characters who have never appeared in the same Marvel continuity, as a side story for an AU I wrote over a year ago.
NO-ONE is going to read it, so why the fuck am I bothering?
For me, I know, I know. I do have a story to tell with it that I like.
The other shinies keep creeping up on me (Dale Cycle! Next original book outline! Billy/Teddy stuff from Profs!AU! Amerikate!) and I'm trying hard to find the piece of me that was so jazzed to write this.
3/4s of the way through or so; I should be past the plain of infinite flatness by now.
Hi Ardatli! I'm reading TNTFT for about the 1000th time (it's my favorite!!) and I was wondering about the plot from Nate's perspective. I kind of do feel bad for him in a way, but then he let his whole evil mastermind side shine through with his plan to get Teddy fired. I was hoping you could tell us more about what his plan with Angel entailed, and how he almost! got away with it. Like how did he get the money to pay her off? Also, does he move on once his plan fails and the story ends? <3
Honest to god, I feel bad for Nate. I do! He's got this long-term relationship that he partially engineered, with the guy he's been in love with almost his entire life. And he knows that he isn't loved as much as he loves, and it's destroying him from the inside out.
He's got this possessive, desperately insecure neediness to him, and Billy's used to letting him be the one in charge until he can't anymore, at which point he explodes and they go to pieces, in the same dysfunctional cycle over and over again. Because they've been doing it that way for so many years, Nate doesn't realize that the game has changed until suddenly at home it's 'Teddy' this and 'Teddy' that... and Billy probably doesn't really realize what he's doing there either. Not at first.
Denial's a powerful thing.
So how does it fall out from Nate's POV... at first, it's same old same old. He and Billy have another blowup, Billy bails to go crash at his brother's place, and Nate wins him back. But Billy's not back entirely - the pattern's broken somehow, and he's distant in a way he normally isn't after a break-up-make-up. So Nate goes investigating. He's around the department all the time, and knows Angel from social events like the wine and cheeses, and she can corroborate what he already suspects - Teddy and Billy are together a lot, and it doesn't look innocent. Then Hallowe'en happens, and he gets a real look at the kind of connection zinging between them, and that jealous side kicks in really strong.
It's really easy to externalize a problem - to say, for instance, the problem is 'the events that lead to me becoming Kang,' not 'the traits I carry inside me that will lead to me becoming Kang.' And Nate externalizes this one as well. The problem with the relationship is not the teenage dysfunction and codependence that he and Billy have found themselves clinging to as adults, the problem is The Interloper. In true Nate fashion, he sets out to remove the problem.
He sets up the bracelet as a failsafe. If things go the way he's starting to suspect they will, given Billy's distance, their escalating fights, (and the strong liklihood that Billy's either sleeping with Teddy or is about to), then he can pull the trigger.
He buys a bracelet and breaks the clasp, gives it to Angel, and has her deliberately drop it in Teddy's office as physical proof she was there.
He's using Angel very much as a tool. If Teddy accepts Angel's offer and tries to sleep with her, then Nate's vindicated! He can prove to Billy right then and there that Teddy's no good, and all will go back to normal. If Teddy doesn't go for it, then the bracelet has been planted as a way to 'prove' that he assaulted Angel, and Nate can get him out of their lives that way.
I figure Nate has some money socked away - his parents' life insurance settlements, maybe. Something he tucked aside for a rainy day. He taps that to pay off Angel's tuition. It's an altruistic gesture, sort of, even if nothing else needs to be done. He can always pass it off as a favour for a gifted student, if it comes up later on.
So that happens, Teddy fends her off, and Nate's life goes to shit.
Jessica posts the Christmas potluck pictures on the website, including the picture of Teddy and Billy kissing under the mistletoe, and Nate loses his mind. It's been a constant refrain of "Teddy said this" and "Teddy did that" for the semester, and he's already deeply suspicious of Billy's feelings for the guy. Which, to be fair, isn't wrong!
Nate and Billy have a blowout to end all blowouts, because after everything Nate's done for Billy... now he has actual 'proof' that Billy's been cheating on him. (deliberate irony there - Nate is badly hurt by 'proof' of a bad thing that never really happened, which is what he was setting up for Teddy.) D-Day.
They break up, Billy runs into the door, manages to give himself a black eye, and so forth. Teddy takes Billy out drinking that night and they almost hook up. Cue Christmas break.
If pattern holds, Nate figures, Billy will get in touch over break. At least at Christmas.
He doesn't.
Nate holds off on pulling the trigger w/r/t the abuse accusations. It will be better if it happens during term, with the largest number of witnesses in the department. Over break, the college might be able to sweep things under the rug. So he waits, and then in January, Angel sees Billy and Teddy arriving together at the school on the day of the fire (Teddy feels like he's being watched - he is). She reports in that it's still on. Nate starts to gather up the money for the next payment to Angel, to set his plan in motion.
Angel later overhears Billy yelling 'at Teddy' in the hallway that 'it's over, he's done.' Billy's angry at the committee he's forced to be on, which we find out as the scene moves into his office, but Angel doesn't (swish of long dark hair and a familiar form in the hallway). Nate gets that information, wonders if it's all over for real? Maybe it was just a fling, and didn't mean as much as he thought it might. He still has a chance to get Billy back, without risking himself in the bargain.
He goes to Billy's place with a rose in hand... and finds Teddy there. Words are exchanged. It's time to burn all his bridges.
Nate calls Angel, she makes the report, and Teddy gets in deeper trouble than he's ever been in before. Nate just has to sit back and watch the ball roll, as far as he's concerned, but - damn him - Teddy manages to weasel out of what was an entirely reasonable trap.
At that point, Nate's basically shot his load. He's pulled his tricks to try and get Teddy dismissed, and that hans't worked. He's tried to woo Billy back, and that hasn't worked. He's been thoroughly and formally replaced, especially that summer once Teddy moves in to his old apartment. Nothing he said to Billy seems to have had any impact on Billy's feelings about Teddy, or caused him to reflect on himself and his own actions in any reasonable way.
Nate's emotionally immature, but he's not dumb. At the end of TNTFT He's gone off to throw himself into work and lick his wounds for a while. He's partially hoping for the karma bus to wander along and destroy Billy and Teddy, -- because part of him remembers what it's like to be in a relationship with Billy, and how self-centred and fucking oblivious he can be at times.
Part of him wants to be happy for them, because he really, really did love Billy. And when you love someone, aren't you supposed to want them to be happy? And Teddy seems to be making Billy much happier than Nate ever could. So he should be able to let them go and be happy.
But he's really not that 'good' a person. He can't quite bring himself to get to that point. So instead he keeps on externalising; his narrative from then on will be "I had a long-term boyfriend, but he dumped me for another guy." And if he ran into Teddy one day, and there was no chance of getting caught, he'd be at least momentarily tempted to shove him into oncoming traffic.
But for the most part, he moves on, and stays away.
E rated? :( Just playing, I AM SO EXCITE EEEEEKKKK!
Heh; yeah. That scene that's still running away from me? 3200 words since the first kiss and so far only one shirt's come off. This is how the word count grows, apparently...
I'm working on an E-rated fic, Take Me Home, which is the Tommy/Darcy extension of Profs!AU that I keep yammering about. I'm about 10k in to something that looks like it'll be about 30k all told, and I need to have it done for the WIP big bang in April.
I'm looking for help from someone willing to help me with a structural edit as well as basic grammar checks and such - "no, this pacing sucks; vary up your sentence length" and "this section should really go before that" and that sort of thing.
The smut is het, the POV is Darcy's, and I don't think there's anything triggery in there. Nothing different than Profs!AU, anyway. Askbox or email me if you're willing and able?
