"At least I can fuck you, if we weren't hooking up I wouldn't be able to fuck anyone but Rachel."

(He does not sound sad about this.)

Sasha is pretty sure there are people in their age group other than himself and Rachel. "Indeed you can," he agrees. 

"I should talk to Lev. Lev can help me get a GED."

"Yeah. I'd recommend finding someone for tutoring but my recommendation would just be Lev, he's really good at it." 

"What am I doing?" Lev says from the other room.

"I'm going to learn ALGEBRA."

"...That seems like a pretty sudden change."

"He wants to get a GED to make Marlo proud of him." 

"...is there any reason you want to make Marlo proud specifically or...?"

"He's Captain America and he said I was sweet."

"He has a crush." 

Chris is SOMEWHAT offended at calling his INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT FEELINGS a crush but he's really too giddy to object.

"Also I'm supposed to talk to Asher about finding a place to stay other than the sewers."

"He's in Indonesia still and my texts haven't been getting through but you can stay here until he gets back. — Lev is that cool." 

"Yes. --Probably you should not proposition me all the time, though, that would lead to bad decisions."

"Okay!"

Chris has turned over a NEW LEAF. A leaf of NOT CAUSING OTHER PEOPLE TO MAKE BAD SEXUAL CHOICES.

"Awesome," Sasha says, and puts his head on Chris's shoulder. 

Not using drugs is easy. He has something better than drugs.

Not doing sex work is harder. He doesn't have another way to earn money, except for shoplifting, and he's pretty sure shoplifting would also be on the 'no' list. But he can sleep in Asher's bed and eat Asher's food, and Ron pays for his phone, and most things he can made a sad face around Lev and Lev will buy it for him, and Rachel shares the money she earns with him just like he shares his food and bed with her. 

Not fucking guys older than him is almost impossible. He doesn't, of course. He jerks off a lot, he fucks Rachel, he gets punched out by a guy with super-strength. He does not seduce Z no matter how hot it would be to fuck someone else who can heal. He does not open Grindr or sneak down to the pier or smile back when a guy cruises him at a bar, even though he knows how easy it would be to find a guy twice his age with a big dick and blonde hair and blue eyes and a smile that makes you feel loved. 

Chris already gets tested regularly; it makes Ron happy and Ron buys him ice cream afterwards. But he gets tested before Ron would start nagging him about it, discovers he has chlamydia, and takes his meds as scheduled. He stops trying to get testosterone. His period comes back and it's. Okay. It's fine. 

Rachel is confused. Rachel is really, really confused. He tries to explain it to her and it doesn't work at all. She misses him a lot and it makes him sad, especially since she doesn't understand at all why what he's doing is more important than her. He talks to her every day, sleeps cuddled up with her in a real bed every night, convinces Lev to buy earrings that match her eyes, punches out a guy who thought he could get away without paying, and none of it helps. 

Ron is also confused but not going to object to any plan that sounds like it means Chris will still be alive when he's 21. 

He avoids Asher. Lev and Sasha say Asher is fine with it but Chris is suspicious that he just forgot that there are an additional two teenagers in his apartment eating his food. It seems like the sort of thing you don't want to draw to a billionaire's attention. 

He avoids Laser. He's pretty sure he's not the sort of person who's allowed to interact with five-year-olds. 

Chris Parker stopped paying attention in school in seventh grade, so Lev has to go back to basics, and then to even more basic basics, and then to things Chris really should have gotten in elementary school. Chris would feel bad about it, if he didn't know that he was smart; it's just that he had always had better things to do than school, and now he doesn't. He studies for ten hours a day, curled up on a couch with a pen in his mouth and science textbooks scattered across the floor. It starts out as something he's doing for Marlo, to make Marlo say he is sweet again.

To his surprise, he discovers he likes it. He likes the austere beauty of mathematics, the feeling of solving a puzzle. He likes learning about what people were like in other times and places. He likes the way that science all makes sense-- it's a system, it's not a collection of random facts that have to be memorized, it all fits together. He writes essays and Ron reads them and ruffles his hair and says that he understands. He cries reading the Well of Loneliness, dislikes Maurice, complains that the Picture of Dorian Grey doesn't have enough fucking in it, says that the Story of O would be way hotter if it were gay but it's pretty good as it is, and objects to the Marquis de Sade on the grounds that there's better porn on Literotica.

When Rachel is off with a client and it would be so easy to download Grindr, he cuddles a pillow to his chest and says to himself: sweet sweet sweet.

It's unfair that the Hottest Guy Lev Has Ever Met is snuggling him and objecting to only having FIVE hours of being tutored in social studies, they should have at least SIX hours. This is really profoundly unfair. Why do things like this keep happening to Lev.

Sasha studies in the same room as Chris and Lev, gets more of his homework done than he was before but mostly winds up reading better books than the ones he's been assigned (if he never hears the name McCandless ever again it will be much too soon) and reading about periods of history that aren't the ones they're covering in class (feudal China is just more interesting, okay?) 

He cuddles Lev every chance he gets and once Asher gets back he cuddles Asher too. Marlo doesn't come around to Stark Tower often but they text and sometimes he visits Marlo's — Marlo calls them quarters but jesus christ how depressing can you get, just because they're SHIELD-provided — anyway. He punches out Chris and cuddles him afterwards, debates whether to tell Marlo what's going on or not, decides to not. (You can always tell someone a thing you've kept quiet, but once you speak you will always have spoken.) 

Chris has a PLAN. It's a GOOD plan. 

He finds out where Marlo's quarters are, figures out an evening where Marlo probably isn't busy, disappears for an entire afternoon to get ready, and knocks on Marlo's door.

Marlo answers the door, blinks, and says, "Are you all right?" 

Chris is wearing a brightly colored floral sundress. He shaved his legs; there are Band-Aids covering three different spots. He's wearing foundation two shades off, shakily applied lipstick, and quite well-applied eyeliner. The overall effect is of a man completely failing to pass as a woman, despite the obvious advantages that come from having real breasts. 

"Yes. I'm a girl."

What what what what what what what. 

"...........okay," he says, "come in." 

He gets to come in! He knew this was a good plan. 

"I stopped taking drugs," he says, coming in, "and doing sex work, and Lev says I can probably take the GED test in like a month."

what what what what what 

"That's good," he says. "What's this about."