Synopsis / Summary / Plot
Kate Bishop wakes in a unfamiliar bed and hears last night's date in the shower. She's happy about it and wonders how things will progress when she pulls aside a curtain and sees that the room is in orbit around the Earth. The guy exits the shower and she has to admit she can't remember his exact name. When he tells her it's Noh-Varr she remembers a previous occasion when he fought the Young Avengers (including herself) (in the Civil War: YA & Runaways mini-series), and he was later in the Avengers as Marvel Boy or Protector. He admits to all that but it ended badly, and both the Avengers and his own Kree blame *him*. But Kate can't hold anything of this against him, not even that he seems to like music from her parents' era (the 60's).
Then space-suited Skrulls attack. Noh grabs a device which warps into a gun that surrounds his hand and he starts shooting. Kate runs to the ship's control room and automatically knows how to drive it away from a big Skrull cannon aimed at it. And that's all we see of these 2 this issue.
In New York Spider-Man gets shot saving a woman from 2 muggers. But he shrugs it off and sends elastic arms to punch the villains in their faces. Then he leaves before the cops arrive, and we see him on a rooftop shapeshifting into Hulkling. Next we see him creeping in through the window of his bedroom in Chelsea to find his boyfriend Wiccan waiting for him. Billy Kaplan is angry because they'd *agreed* to give up superheroing after Young Avengers broke up in the Avengers: Children's Crusade limited series because Stature (Cassie Lang) died and Vision (Jonas) was destroyed by Iron Lad (the future Kang).
Teddy Altman isn't repentant. They were both born with superpowers. Billy's 'real' mom is the Scarlet Witch and his foster parents are great. They let Teddy stay with them (the boys not sharing a bedroom of course). They were so nice that Billy's 'brother' Tommy Shepherd (Speed) had to leave or die of saccharine poisoning. Billy has awesome magical reality-warping power that he's afraid to use and a boyfriend who would do anything for him. But Teddy is a shapeshifting Skrull-Kree half-breed whose parents are all dead, including the Skrull woman who raised him on Earth. But he has Billy and he's not going to live a lie. Billy is shamed and swears to be the best boyfriend ever from now on. But for now he'd better get to his own room.
In that room he uses his magic to scan alternate realities. But before we find out what for we'll visit ...
... Kid Loki in a nearby diner with articles of food arranged on the table which suddenly rise into the air and intone "The Wiccan child. The time cometh." A spoken runic word takes him to Billy's roof and he prepares a spell to stop what he's doing. But *he*'s stopped by the arrival of the super-powerful America Chavez (variously called Miss America and Ms America) who thinks he's going to kill Wiccan. She attacks and Loki uses his teleportation spell to keep out of the way. But a Gorgon (of the Inhumans)-like stamp knocks him off his feet and she has him.
Meanwhile Billy has located a version of Teddy's mom who's just been killed, but he needs something different. And he finds a moment before the death. But the noise on the roof has awoken Teddy and the Kaplan parents. Teddy rushes up the stairs to the roof.
Loki casts another rune spell as Wiccan does what he meant to do resulting in a woman appearing in a blinding light. And Teddy reaches the roof to yell at America (who he doesn't know) to stop choking Loki (who he recognises) and who uses the opportunity to teleport away. America also flies off. And Mr Kaplan calls Teddy down to where we see that Billy has rescued a 'Mrs Altman' from the multiverse. Teddy doesn't know she's not *his* mom and he just holds her tight.
Later when Billy and Teddy are asleep Mrs Altman rejoins Jeff and Rebecca Kaplan to talk to them about the boys. She bluntly says they're too young to be living together and in fact she's unhappy that Billy is in a relationship ata ll when he should be studying. The angry Kaplans think that the boys' happiness is the best thing but Mrs Altman says she's the kind of mother that knows best. And fleshy tendrils from her hand smother the other 2.