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Chapter Text

“I just don’t understand the point of being in a relationship if you’re not willing to shell out for good Halloween costumes together,” Tommy says. He’s dangling upside down from Billy’s bed, which isn’t terribly comfortable but has the advantage of letting him ogle Billy’s collection of Avengers posters from a new and exciting perspective. 

“Sorry, was that Thomas Shepherd, expressing a sentiment that could be interpreted as sentimental or maybe even romantic ?” Billy looks up from his computer, where he’s doing something hopelessly nerdy like researching the latest Avengers news or—god forbid— homework . 

“Shut up,” says Tommy. “I just go hard for Halloween.”

“Wow, I really didn’t need you to phrase it like that.”

Tommy throws a pillow at him, which Billy deflects. 

“Shockingly, Teddy and I are not joined at the hip and do not actually need to coordinate every single aspect of our lives.”

“You could have fooled me.”

“Ha ha,” says Billy, utterly humorless. “You’re just bitter because you’re perpetually single and couldn’t find someone you could rope into a couple’s costume if your life depended on it.”

“Hey, I’m not perpetually single.” Tommy protests. “I’m simply a free spirit who feels no need to tie himself down.”

Billy looks unconvinced. “Right. And that’s why the line of smitten girls dying to date you is out the door.”

What about a line of guys? Tommy bites the words back before they can even think about climbing out of his mouth. There are some things he won’t bring up with even Billy. Actually, especially with Billy. 

It’s like this: Billy is so confident in who he is, so sure of his love. He’s the guy who emerged out of years of bullying just for who he was, who he loved—and Tommy might not have been around for that, but he knows it got bad —with a hot alien boyfriend and the unofficial moniker of “the well-adjusted twin.” 

What’s Tommy supposed to say in response to that?

Oh, yeah, sometimes in juvie I used to check out other guys in the shower. And one time I jerked off to a magazine cover of Captain America and felt super weird about it afterwards, but I think that has more to do with the fact that he’s, like, the self-appointed anti-Young Avengers crusader.

Nah, that’s not a conversation he really wants to have. And it’s not a big deal. Seriously. And besides, he’s got more pressing issues to deal with. Like the fact that he’s got a slew of Halloween parties to attend this weekend and not the slightest idea for a costume. 

“What are you being for Halloween, then?”

Billy runs his hands through his hair, tugging on it thoughtfully. “I...”

“You don’t know!” Tommy crows, utter hypocrite that he is. “A week before Halloween and you have no clue.”

Billy sighs. “I’ve just—I’ve been busy, okay? Plus, I run around in a costume half the time anyway, it’s not like Halloween is an unusual opportunity.”

“I don’t get the name,” Tommy says suddenly. 

“Name?” 

“Wiccan. I mean, you’re not even pagan. You’re Jewish. So what’s the deal?”

“Would you rather have me go back to Asgardian?”

“Um, no . The media would have a field day with that.” 

“Exactly.”

“But why not, I dunno, Warlock?”

“That’s taken. Even if I wanted it, some robot alien dude got there first.”

“So what? You’re Scarlet Witch’s son, that’s gotta be more important than some guy I’ve never heard of before.”

“That’s not really how it works. And at least my codename isn’t a synonym for amphetamine .”

Tommy crosses his arms behind his head, which is made somewhat harder by his precarious upside-down position. “All part of my grand plan.”

Billy turns back to his laptop. “Now are you done harassing me about my superhero name?”

“I guess.” Tommy drums his heels against the wall. 

“Hey, those are my pants.” Billy says, attention dragged away from the contents of his computer screen again.

“Are they?” Tommy reaches up and fiddles with a hole in the knee of the black skinny jeans he pulled out of the clean laundry this morning. “They fit me awfully well.”

“Of course they fit , we’re identical twins.”

“Hm.” At that, the cogs in Tommy’s brain click together and an idea sparks. “Wait. I just had a brilliant idea.” He squirms around until he’s flopped upright on the bed, just to draw out the moment of suspense. “ You don’t have a Halloween costume. I don’t have a Halloween costume.”

“You were just making fun of me for not—“ Billy starts, but Tommy continues as if he hadn’t heard him.

“Why don’t we just go as each other?”

***

Kate oversees the official Dying of the Hair. Well, bleaching, in Billy’s case, but it’s the box of hair dye labeled “luscious walnut”—a phrase that sounds more like an ice cream flavor than something that belongs on his head—that Tommy finds himself eyeing dubiously in the Kaplan family bathroom.

“And remind me why I should trust you as the expert on hair dye?”

“I like, almost went full purple last year,” Kate says, slipping on plastic gloves with the air of a surgeon preparing for the operating table. “I decided it would be too much, but I still did a ton of research. Trust me.”

It’s not really as comforting as she probably thinks it is, but Tommy decides not to press it. His hair’s never really been able to hold a dye, anyway—some mutant side effect that his dad just loved when he was trying to pretend Tommy was just a normal teenager and not a ticking time bomb of a superpowered delinquent. Worst case scenario, he’s got a bad dye job for a week before it fades away. 

Kate tucks a ratty old towel around his shoulders over the ancient My Chemical Romance shirt plucked from the depths of Billy’s closet for its disposability—and no, Tommy is never going to let his brother live down this clear evidence of his emo phase—and starts smearing Vaseline all over his hairline and neck.

“Eurgh.” Tommy shivers at the cold, slimy substance. 

“Hold still,” Kate says, still surgeon-ruthless. “Unless you want your ears to be dyed brown when this is done.”

“As lovely as that sounds, I think I’ll pass.”

Despite Kate’s apparent lack of hands-on experience, she manages to finish mixing and applying the dye without setting his hair on fire or pouring the mixture down the back of his shirt, which is more than he could have managed himself. Setting a timer for thirty minutes, she hops onto the edge of the sink. 

Tommy perches awkwardly on the edge of the bathtub, sitting in his hands to resist the urge to fiddle with his hair while the dye sets. “So...What are you going as?”

“Sexy cat,” Kate says, matter-of-fact. “Never fails to be a hit with the guys.” There’s something almost flirtatious about it, a hint he could probably pick up on and follow if he was so inclined. Or maybe Kate’s just like that. It can be hard to tell, sometimes. 

“I think I’m more of a sexy nurse guy, myself,” says Tommy. 

It’s not that Kate’s not hot. Or funny. Or badass. Or smart. But, like, teammate code would probably make it weird. Plus, after they went out, she went and had a serious thing with Eli and he’s not really sure where that leaves them after that. And he’s seen the way America looks at her now.

Yeah, better sit this one out. Just for her sake. Obviously. 

“We all have our preferences,” Kate says, swinging her legs idly. “So, whose idea was it?”

“What?” Tommy is used to flinging questions at other people, but for some reason, the reverse catches him off-guard. 

“The twin costume thing. Your idea or Billy’s? Teddy said the other day he’d been thinking of putting together costumes with Billy, but he said already had plans with you.”

Well, vindication on that front . “ Not joined at the hip,” my ass.

“Mine.” He sounds weirdly defensive, but maybe that’s just to his ears. 

“Really?” 

“What, you didn’t peg me as a Halloween kind of guy?” He wasn’t lying, earlier. He does go hard for Halloween. Maybe because it’s the only holiday where his unnaturally white hair doesn’t stick out so much, screaming “mutant! superpowered weirdo over here, everyone!” Maybe because, growing up, it was the only holiday that didn’t remind him how alone he was, how his romantic prospects were totally bleak and his family could have been filed in the dictionary under “dysfunctional.” Also, free candy.

Kate shrugs. “Not really. Or, well, you never struck me as a super brotherly guy.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Not brotherly? He’s got a brother, what’s more brotherly than that?

Kate holds up her hands defensively. “Whoa, whoa. I didn’t mean anything bad by it. Just...I’ve always gotten the vibe that Billy has always been the one more interested in creating a relationship between you two. That you’re a little...closed off.”

I’m literally living with him, Tommy wants to point out, but doesn’t. He knows how that’d probably sound. Defensive. Closed off.

And okay, maybe it does sting a little that the person he’s closest to on the team—closest to in the world , if he’s being honest, not that there’s a lot of competition—doesn’t think they’re close.

His throat feels strangely tight all of a sudden. Maybe it’s the fumes from the dye. Yeah, that’s probably it.

He swallows hard. “I’ve never really...done the whole family things,” he says. His voice comes out gruff.

“Hey, no, I get it,” Kate says. “And your family thin g, ” she air-quotes, “is a whole lot weirder than most people’s.”

Again, Tommy resists the urge to touch the dye setting on his hair. “Are you sure half an hour is long enough?” He’s never dyed hair before—and his hair certainly isn’t like most people’s—but that seems like a really short amount of time.

“Positive,” Kate says.

He’s still not totally convinced.

Out of the blue, Kate laughs.

“What?”

She shakes her head. “Just your face. You have this dubious way of chewing on your lip that Billy does as well.”

“It’s a...” he trails off. A twin thing is on the tip of his tongue because that’s how someone else would explain away this shared gesture they’ve somehow both picked up despite the miles and families that separated them. But honestly, Billy’s the one who’d say that. The one who can easily throw around words like brother and twin that still feel like a foreign language to Tommy. “Habit,” he finishes. 

“Hm,” Kate says, but doesn’t push it.

“What’s Teddy going as, anyway?” he asks, changing the subject.

She shrugs. “Oh, I don’t know. Whatever it is, it’ll be easy for him. Dude could make himself look like anyone he wants to.”

“If only we all had such Halloween-relevant superpowers.” Tommy shifts awkwardly on the cold porcelain of the tub’s edge. “Billy’s not even bleaching his hair, did you know? He just gets to wave a hand and say some mumbo-jumbo, but he says mutant magic wouldn’t mix well with mutant hair, so I’ve got to sit here wrapped in a towel instead.”

“Truly, your suffering is endless,” Kate says drily. She checks the timer on her phone. “Actually, you should be good to rinse now.”

She hops off the sink and helps Tommy peel the shower cap off his dye-laden hair, stepping out of the bathroom so he can rinse the residual dye out of his hair, brown dregs of water swirling down the drain. 

He towels off and does his best to stand still as Kate blow-dries the results— “No, you idiot, stop twitching or the cord will fall in the sink and electrocute us both”—until he’s finally allowed to look in the mirror at the rival results.

Billy Kaplan stares out.

Well, not actually Billy Kaplan. Tommy’s not an idiot. He knows that isn’t actually his brother blinking back at him, dressed in a now-soggy emo band shirt. But it sure as hell looks like him at first glance.

I mean, he’s always known they’re identical. Hell, that’s what even tipped them off about the whole reincarnated-twin thing. But between Tommy’s silver-white hair and green eyes and the fact that Billy looks like he’s actually encountered a hairbrush this decade, it’s not always that apparent. Billy’s the better-groomed brunette and Tommy’s the shaggy-haired delinquent who wears whatever clothing he grabs off the floor first in the morning. It can be easy, then, to forget how similar they actually look.

But apparently a box of hair dye can make a big difference when it comes to that. 

“…Huh.” Tommy runs his hands through his freshly-dyed fair–still longer and messier than Billy’s, but apparently his random grab of dye from the nearest pharmacy was a pretty good match for the color. 

“Well–” Kate looks around the bathroom, with it’s discarded towels and drips of brown hair dye despite their careful efforts. “I think I’ll leave you to clean up.” 

***

“Sorry, what’s the point of this?” Tommy holds the container of hair gel between two fingers and eyes it suspiciously.

“To make you look slightly less like you spend your spare time getting dragged through hedges,” Billy says, plucking it out of Tommy’s hands and grabbing a comb.

Tommy does his best to dodge his brother’s hands as he squeezes a dollop of the gel onto his fingers, but the bathroom is too small for any escapist manoeuvres. 

“Oh, come on .” Billy combs the gel through Tommy’s hair. “This was your idea to begin with. At least I’m not making you pierce your ears.”

Tommy shivers slightly at the idea. Yeah, he still doesn’t really like needles. 

“There.” Billy lets him out of the semi-headlock and rinses his fingers, stepping back to take two of them in. 

They weren’t exactly hard costumes to pull together–all this means is that Tommy’s officially borrowing these pants instead of stealing them. He’s got one of Billy’s nice button-up shirts while Billy has his hoodie, a miraculously clean striped shirt dredged up from somewhere in the depths of his room, and a head of magically pale hair. The effect is kind of like looking in a funhouse mirror–recognizable, but distorted. Slightly off. Tommy Kaplan and Billy Shepherd. 

Billy clicks his phone open to check the group chat. “Kate sent me the address and Teddy’ll meet us there. We all good to go?”

Tommy nods in affirmation. It’s taking a concentrated amount of effort not to start vibrating at the speed of light. He just wants out , wants freedom , wants the buzz of alcohol in his veins and the dark, anonymous crush of bodies around him. 

Billy grabs a coat–one of his, because apparently Tommy “wouldn’t know a proper winter coat if it bit him on the ass”–and shouts a goodbye to his parents, who are cleaning up in the kitchen. The Kaplans aren’t ultra-religious, but every Friday they sit down for Shabbat dinner and Tommy joins them because a) they’re letting him live in the spare room for the second time and he’s not a total disrespectful jerk and b) Mr. Kaplan’s challah is to die for. 

“Be back by midnight, kids!” Mrs. Kaplan calls from the kitchen.

“Will do!” Billy replies. Tommy stays silent because, hey, better not to make promises you’re just planning on breaking. 

He honestly has no idea who’s hosting this particular party–some finishing school friend of Kate’s?–but judging by the brownstone they find themselves in front of, they’re loaded. Light and laughter pour out of the glowing golden windows, the bassline of a song flooding from some hidden speakers and practically shaking the sidewalk under his feet. 

Next to him, Billy swallows. “You, uh, ready?” He sounds a little nervous. Sometimes it’s a little hard to remember that Billy spent a chunk of his pre-Young Avengers life wildly unpopular. Raging house parties probably weren’t his scene. 

But Tommy? Tommy lives for this stuff. The moments where he can totally forget who he is and where he’s at–dark rooms, loud music, drink in hand, shedding every care, even how much he’ll curse himself when he wakes with his mind in the vise of a hangover the next morning. 

“Absolutely,” he says, and takes the plunge.

After a few minutes, he revises his host theory from One of Kate’s finishing school friends to Some rich superhero kid because there’s more than a few people he recognizes from that last after-party from the summer. Which, now that he thinks about it, might have been the last big party he went to. Which–and he’s definitely thought about this–was a weird party in a number of ways.

He slides his way through the tangle of bodies and into the kitchen and emerges victorious, with a drink in hand. It’s early hours, but the rooms are already sweltering hot from body heat and he downs his drink in two gulps. Lukewarm, but better than nothing. 

Billy has already peeled off, presumably to find a certain green space prince, and the  lighting is just dim enough that it’s hard to actually recognize people. Which is fine with Tommy–he’s not here to catch up, he’s here to let loose. Somehow a second drink finds its way into his hand and the music changes to something faster, the energy of the crowd turning electric as bodies jostle and grind in the low lighting. 

The song ends and he escapes into the hall for a breath of air, pushing already-sweaty hair off his forehead. There’s zombies and a cowboy arguing on the staircase and the bride of Frankenstein making out with Chewbacca, but the air is cooler and quieter here.

“Tommy!” someone says behind him and he turns, expecting to see Kate or Teddy. Or maybe Noh-Varr, though he honestly has no idea what he’s up to these days.

It’s not Kate. Or Teddy. Or even Noh-Varr.

It’s David. 

“H-hi,” Tommy says, taking a stumbling half-step back even though he’s not really drunk enough for that. 

David’s dressed as a vampire, in a red-lined black cape over a waistcoat and poofy white shirt. It looks a little incongruous with his glasses, but it also works. Like he’s some kind of sexy librarian vampire who lures people into the archives to drink their blood. 

“You recognized me,” Tommy says dully, unsure of what else to say. 

David cocks his head. “Why wouldn’t I, dude? And what are you dressed as?”

“Billy,” he says, sharply realizing that this costume doesn’t really make that much sense without the other half. “That’s why the–” he gestures at the hair.

David nods. “Ah, that’s why you were surprised I recognized you.”

“I mean, we are identical.”

“I could always recognize you,” David says.

Tommy swallows hard at that. 

The thing is, he hasn’t really seen David since that we-saved-the-universe after-party. Where David kissed him–or not him , as it was explained, but some weird ghost of Eli. Or something. Either way, when Tommy popped back into existence from whatever weird pocket of timespace he’d gotten sucked into, it sure felt like David was kissing him.

Which is something he’s thought about.

A little bit.

Occasionally. 

“How’s, uh, life?” David asks, leaning against the bannister.

“Good,” says Tommy, and then blanks on anything else he can say. 

“So,” David says, seemingly also at a loss for words. “I assume there’s a Thomas Shepherd out there somewhere?” He inclines his head, indicating the glimpse of the crowd through the doorway. 

“Yup.” He gestures down at the outfit. “But tonight I’m embodying William Kenneth Kaplan, I guess.”

“Very convincing.”

“Really?” He feels a sudden rush of satisfaction at the compliment. “Kate helped with the hair.” 

“Is it just skin-deep or has Billy made you privy to his deepest secrets so when his mafia lord arch-enemy kidnaps you off the street you can convincingly fake your way through a stand-off?”

Tommy lays a knowing finger against his cheek. “Oh, I know everything now. I know that, uh,” he stumbles for some piece of Billy trivia. “Uh, he’s named for William Shakespeare and his uncle Kenneth, respectively.” 

“Shakespeare?” David lifts a single eyebrow. “I didn’t know that.” 

“Yeah, uh, Rebecca said her first date with Jeff was to a production of Twelfth Night? Or something?” Tommy grasps at the only straw of conversation that seems available. “I’ve never read a single Shakespeare play so I actually have no idea what that means,” he confesses.

“Oh, Professor X is big on having us read the old-white-dude classics,” David says. “But that one’s fun. Very chaotic, very bisexual. Oh, and there’s twins! So kind of fitting.” 

“Uh huh.” Tommy swallows. “We didn’t exactly read a lot of classic lit in juvie, so. Gaps in my education, I guess.”

“Really? Dude, the demon that created you–or like, the previous you? I still don’t know how that really worked, sorry–is literally called Mephisto. Like, hello, Doctor Faustus much?” David’s gesturing wildly with his hands, eyes alight, and it’s a little cute except, yup, now they’re firmly outside the territory of things Tommy knows a thing about. Which is bound to happen when you’re a high school drop-out and you’re talking with a guy who can absorb the contents of other people’s brains.

“Yeah…” Personally, Tommy came here to have a good time, not to be reminded that when most people were taking AP English, he was busy being a human lab rat at superhuman juvie. “I’m gonna get another drink,” he says, and then slips back into the crowd before David can say another word. 

They’ve finally busted out the good stuff in the kitchen and a sexy cheetah girl hands him vodka and orange juice, which he gulps down, savoring the burn of the alcohol and the clink of ice against his teeth. He leans against the counter, feeling a little calmer. Shakespeare, demons–whatever. David didn’t mean to rub anything in. He’s probably just here to get wasted and have a Halloween to remember like everyone else in this house.

Tommy weaves his way back through the crowd to where he left David, already half-reaching out to grab his shoulder and ask if he wants to come dance as he imagines the thrill of their bodies next to each other in the midst of the dark, pulsing crowd.

Except–nope. David has already moved on, apparently, his hand tangled in the blonde curls of the cowboy from the staircase and getting very acquainted with the other guy’s mouth. Hungrily. Frantically. Utterly blind to the world. 

Tommy turns on his heel and thrusts his way back into before either of them can look up and see him. 

He pushes his way through the main room and out into a back hallway, heedless of the music and the inviting lure of the dance floor. Because that’s what Tommy Shepherd always does when things get tough.

He runs.

Tommy lurches out the back door, cool night air kissing his flushed cheeks, and collapses onto the stoop. 

“Hey,” says a voice next to him. 

He looks over with a jolt and sees it’s Billy, sprawled in a lawn chair, head tipped up back towards the sky. 

“Hey,” Tommy replies, feeling suddenly dizzy. The world is a little hazy around him, the darkened shrubs of the backyard tilting back and forth. He’s not that drunk, except then he stops and counts the drinks he’s had and, yeah, maybe he is that drunk.

“Enjoying the party?” Billy offers. 

Tommy makes a face. “Not really.”

“No?” Billy tips his head, ready to listen, because he’s thoughtful like that. Because he’d listen to Tommy dump out his woes and probably say something comforting. 

Except what could he say, really? Haha, yeah, I saw David kissing another guy back there and it felt like my insides were being scooped out with a rusty fork. Funny thing, that.

Or maybe: Yeah, I totally rejected David at that after-party and then ditched him to get alcohol when he was just making conversation and then had the audacity to be upset when he stuck his tongue down someone else’s throat.

“Don’t really know anyone,” is what he settles for, with a casual shrug of the shoulder, like it’s not really that big of a deal.

“You know me,” Billy points out. “And Kate, wherever she is.”

“And Teddy,” Tommy adds with a sigh. “Where is he, anyway?”

“Oh, just catching up with some people while I went to get some fresh air. I think he ran into Karolina and apparently they’re kind of tight now? ”

“Gay alien club of two,” Tommy offers.

Billy laughs. “I guess.” He tips his head back to take in the sky. “It’s so beautiful, isn’t it? Even with the light pollution.”

“I guess.” Tommy’s never been the stargazing kind of guy. It’s hard to watch the sky when you’re also trying to watch your back.

Billy folds his hands behind his head, taking in the constellations above. “I like it. It makes me feel small. Like I’m part of something bigger. It’s good to be reminded of that.”

“Because usually you are the bigger thing?” Tommy guesses. It can be a little hard to wrap his mind around it–that he can run fast and explode things sometimes, but his brother can create whole universes . That he’s currently sitting next to one of the most powerful people in the universe who’s wearing a hoodie and sneakers that could most charitably be described as well-loved .

“Yeah,” Billy sighs. “Demiurge and all that.” 

“Demiurge,” Tommy echoes. Then: “How do you believe, then?”

Billy turns to face him. “In what?”

Tommy gestures vaguely. “In like, god, I guess? I mean, you’re Jewish and you go to synagogue and stuff. But you’re also, like, practically a god.” 

Billy laughs. “Come on, Tommy, I’m not a god . I’m a witch.”

“No, really. How does that work?” Tommy must sound serious, because Billy leans forward, face turning thoughtful.

“It’s like…” he starts, then trails off for a moment. “There’s no way I can believe I’m the highest being out there, you know? I’m just an often-depressed gay guy from Upper Wst Side who still can’t get all the way through Fire Emblem: Three Houses. And I like to think that if God could make all sorts of weird things like platypi and axolotls, they could also make someone like me, I guess.” He shrugs. “Plus, there’s all this Kabbalah stuff I’ve been looking into and–” he stops ruefully. “Actually, nah, you probably don’t want a lecture on Jewish mysticism. Shit’s complicated. But yeah, I’ve thought about it.”

“That makes sense.” 

“And, I don’t know, for me, being Jewish isn’t just about believing in God, you know? It’s also family and tradition and stuff. Community. It’s made me who I am, same as any other part of me. It feels like I couldn’t stop being Jewish anymore than I could stop being gay or being a mutant” Billy sighs. “I really should change my codename though. No one ever said that would be the hard part of being a superhero.”

“Maybe you could work a color in there to keep it original? White Warlock?” Tommy offers.

“Uh, no way,” Billy scoffs. “I’m not changing my whole color scheme to avoid a copyright problem. I look good in red. Plus, Warlock means oath-breaker and that’s not exactly what I want for my image, we’ve been over this.”

“It’s sort of weird, isn’t it?” Tommy ventures. “That when you got reincarnated, that part stuck. Being Jewish, I mean. Because Magneto is, at least. And maybe Wanda? I don’t really know how that stuff works, to be honest.” 

“Yeah.” Billy settles back into the lawn chair. “I’ve thought about that too, a bit. It’s not just my soul or my magic that came with me for round two. I mean, I’m Jewish and my mom’s side of the family Romani and we both look like siblings. It’s not like our souls just got squished into some random new babies or whatever.”

“Wait, your mom’s side of the family is Romani?” Tommy knows that Wanda is, obviously, but he never realized Billy’s other mom is as well. 

“Yeah. Well, my grandma’s side of the family, to be more specific.”

“Oh. Huh.” The heat from inside is wearing off and a night breeze sends a chill along his spine. He rubs his arms to feel warmer, but it doesn’t work.

He’s almost jealous, in a way. Of how certain Billy is in at least one of his families and his history. Tommy has…what? A nasty divorce? A family who always regarded him as a threat waiting to be enacted? A dad who was willing to ship him off to super juvie to get poked and prodded like a lab rat? 

“I like to think,” Billy says, “That it’s not as random as it seems. The reincarnation thing or whatever. That there was this…sense of who I was before echoing across to me now. At least it feels that way for me, I don’t know if it’s that way for you.”

Tommy rubs his arms, suddenly cold. “I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t think I…believe in things like you do.” Not just in a religious way, but in how Billy seems to think the world is more than just random tangles clashing together.

There’s an old photo, he remembers, of his mother helping him light a menorah. From before the divorce, when he was maybe three or four. He can almost remember–or maybe he’s just making it up, filling in the details so he has at least one memory from before it all went bad, before his mom started looking at him like he wasn’t her son at all and he could see the word freak in his dad’s eyes every time he looked at his son. The smell of beeswax as the candle wick burned, his mom’s hands gently guiding his own. And he knows from paperwork that his mom’s maiden name is Kolompár–not exactly WASP central. But none of it really feels meaningful the way Billy seems to think it is. Like there’s some sense of who Thomas Maximoff was that’s carried over to Thomas Shepherd.

“You don’t have to,” Billy says softly. “But, you know, you’ve still got a standing invitation to come to synagogue with us, if you’re ever interested.” 

Above, the constellations glow dimly through the light pollution–Orion and the Big Dipper and Polaris and whatever other shit someone who knows more than Tommy could name. And wow, Polaris is his half-aunt, isn’t she? This stuff is kind of inescapable.

“Yeah, maybe.” Tommy stands up from the stoop, brushes his pants off. Suddenly, all he really wants is another drink. To lose himself in the beat of a song and the body of a stranger he’ll never see again. To not think about sexy vampire librarians or brothers or reincarnation or parents. 

And so he does. But no matter how many shots he takes, no matter how many times he throws his head back on the dance floor and lets the beat of a song invade his bloodstream, some part of him is still sitting under the October stars, wondering who the hell Tommy Shepherd even is.

Chapter Text

His hair is still brown when he wakes up the next morning, but that’s the least of his problems.

His first problem is the splitting headache that feels an awful like an Irish step-dancing troupe is practicing on the inside of his skull.

His second problem is that, according to his alarm clock, it’s way past noon.

Tommy wants nothing more to groan, roll over, and go back to sleep in hopes that it could deliver him from the splitting pain in his head–how many shots did he have last night, again?–but both his bladder and his empty stomach seem to have other plans. He drags on clothing–his own, he makes sure–and stumbles into the bathroom and then into the kitchen.

“Morning, Tommy!” Mrs. Kaplan a.k.a call-me-Rebecca says cheerily from the kitchen table from over the fold of her newspaper. 

“Morning,” Tommy rasps. He snuck back in sometime around 2 A.M. and he’s pretty sure neither of the Kaplan parents noticed his late return, but he’s definitely not a good enough actor to pretend he’s anything but immensely hungover. 

He opens the fridge, desperate to shovel cereal into his growling stomach, but there’s no milk left.

“Billy took the last of the milk,” Mrs. Kaplan explains, sipping her coffee. 

Okay, fine. Billy’s the good twin who goes out to a Halloween party with his respectable space-prince boyfriend and returns before curfew. Tommy’s the bad twin who gets wasted and stumbles home with no regard for the house rules. 

He shuts the fridge a little harder than intended. 

“I’ll go get more,” he grumbles. The bodega is just around the corner for the Kaplan’s apartment. Grabbing a bagel to tear into untoasted in an attempt to quiet his howling stomach, he swings out the door and down the staircase. Previous experience has taught him that superspeed and a hangover go together about as well as mint toothpaste and orange juice, so he forces himself to walk at a regular pace down the street, head throbbing at the bright sunlight. 

At the store, he grabs the first thing of milk he can find, shuffles to the cash register, and manages to pull enough crumpled dollar bills from his jeans pocket to pay.

“Oh my god, Wiccan?” A voice behind him drags him back to attention just as he’s leaving the store.

Tommy turns and sees a wide-eyed girl behind him, maybe thirteen or fourteen.

“It is you,” she squeals. “I thought so!” 

“I–” he starts. The hair. Of course. And people know Billy, obviously. He’s Scarlet Witch’s son and one of the most powerful mutants out there, of course he’s been in a headline or two.

She continues in a rush before he can explain. “I was wondering, um, could I get an autograph? If you’re not in a hurry?” She pulls a pen and notepad out of her back pocket, eyeing him hopefully. 

He’s never had anyone look at him like this, really. Like he’s a hero.

But he’s not Wiccan. He’s not Billy. He’s not the hero who could create universes and rearrange constellations. He’s just the guy who vaporized his high school.

So he shakes his head. “Sorry. I’ve got to go.” He hoists the jug of milk apologetically in one hand.

“Oh! Uh, of course. I’m sorry to keep you.” She bites her lip. “I just wanted to say that it, um, just means a lot to me to see an openly gay superhero. I’m bi and–yeah, it’s cool. Thanks. Sorry about bothering you, though.”

“Don’t–don’t worry,” he stutters, and then dashes past her, milk in hand. 

He doesn’t make for the Kaplan’s apartment, instead finding himself wandering aimlessly down the street in the opposite direction, hunching against the chill October breeze that ruffles his hair and sends leaves and garbage tumbling down the sidewalk. And maybe hoping, just a little bit, that if he keeps his head down, no one else will recognize him.

Well, not even him. Wiccan. 

Not Speed. Never him. 

He can’t imagine someone ever coming up to him with that kind of excitement in their eyes, that kind of admiration. 

He’s never been a hero who could inspire something like that, not really. He’s been the white-haired mutant freak, the ticking time bomb, the human weapon, the delinquent, the criminal. Even when he’d kept his head down, tiptoed around his dad and that new girlfriend of his, no one had ever seen him as anything but the bad kid waiting to go worse.

So maybe at a certain point he’d given up trying to be anything else. Let the expectations come true. 

He finds himself at the mouth of a subway station, still clutching the gallon of milk in one hand. Tommy knows he could just zip back to the Kaplan’s apartment, dump the milk in the fridge, and return to bed to nurse his hangover in the dark, but something stops him from turning around and leaving. Something makes him take a step down in the station and then another and another until he’s standing on the platform.

A train rattles in and he steps in through the doors in a daze. He doesn’t even know where he's going until, just sitting there with a gallon of milk on his lap as he shoots through station after station. Tommy’s never really spent much time on public transportation, not when his own powers are usually faster and require less elbow-rubbing with strangers. But he just sits and watches–the tired college student with earbuds bobbing his head to some unheard song, the older woman with an overflowing bag of groceries, the two teenagers jokingly pushing each other back and forth in the comment. None of them seem to recognize him–or Billy–which is a relief.

The train pulls into another station with a rattle and then some part of him does seem to know where he’s going because he’s standing and walking through the subway doors and back up into the sunlight.

Right up to the front of the Avengers Mansion. 

He snaps out of it at the sight of the arched windows and gleaming brickwork. Like, hello , what the hell does he think he’s doing here?

He turns to go, gallon of milk still dangling from his hand, and is prepared to weather the superspeed-hangover combination if he’ll just make it back to his bedroom on the Upper West Side when someone says “Thomas” next to him.

He jumps, dropping the milk, and realizes that Wanda Maximoff is standing right behind him. 

“Hi–sorry–what?” he says all at once, grabbing the carton of milk off the ground. It’s dented, but still intact, which is great because the last thing he wants is to have poured milk all over the ground in front of his past-reincarnation mom. “I was just. Out.” He holds the milk up by way of explanation. “Running errands. And was passing by.” 

Wanda, to her credit, doesn’t point that milk can’t really be purchased anywhere on the grounds of the Avengers Mansion, just cocks her head and takes him in for a second. “Want some tea?” She’s dressed in running gear and her curly brown hair is pulled back in a ponytail, like she just came back from a job through Central Park. 

“Uh, sure?” He doesn’t really drink tea–coffee, maybe, but he’s never really liked the whole “wait for it to steep” part of tea. Honestly, why the hell not, though?

Wanda leads him through the main entrance, the kind of “arched windows and framed photos” place made to impress and down a hallway into a back kitchen. Judging by the number of dirty dishes in the sink, it’s not a stop on the public tours. It’s also totally empty except for afternoon sunlight, which is a relief. The last thing Tommy needs is to run into Captain America. 

He slumps in a kitchen chair as Wanda puts the kettle on in silence. 

The thing is, he’s never really spent that much time with Wanda like this. A lot of their family bonding seems to come in the direct aftermath of having averted the end of the world. And Billy’s usually also here, for another. Actually, he hasn’t spent that much time around any  of the other members of his family like this. Most of his conversations with Quicksilver usually involve his uncle trying to convince Tommy that’s he not the faster of the two–as if. And honestly, being around Vision can be kind of weird. He’s still not really sure what to make of the whole “your dad from a previous life is a robot.” Plus, then he just starts wondering things like whether that means his grandfather is Ultron. Does that make him a quarter evil robot mastermind, then?

Yeah, there haven’t been a lot of normal family reunions.

He picks at his nails, unsure of what to say. “Out for a run?” he tries.

Wanda nods. “Not infringing on your speedster territory, don’t worry. I think I saw a three-legged dachshund pass me at one point.”

He stops for a second. Was that a joke ? From Wanda Maximoff? Okay, admittedly, he shouldn’t be surprised because the aforementioned lack of family bonding means he doesn’t actually know her that well. But he still is, kinda.

“Is mint tea okay?” She asks, rifling through one of the cupboards. “We’re out of everything else.”

“Mint is fine, yeah.” 

She pulls out two mugs and drops teabags into them, leaning against the counter. “Were you looking for Pietro?”

“Not really.”

“Me, then?”

He shrugs half-heartedly. “Not really looking for anyone in particular, I guess. Just passing.” 

She nods. “You changed your hair. Trying to go mutant stealth?”

His hand flies to his head. He’d almost forgotten. “Um, no. Just a Halloween thing. Should be gone in a few days. Dye never lasts long.”

“Ah. It’s the same with Pietro.”

If he’s being honest, sometimes he’s a little jealous of Billy for being Wanda’s protégé. Not that he’d want the freaky universe-bending powers–no way is he giving up speed for that hassle. But people always seem to match them up: Billy and Wanda, Pietro and Tommy. And logically, it makes sense–the silver-haired speedsters, the unimaginably powerful witches. 

But he knows Wanda’s reputation as well as everyone and thinks, sometimes, that she might be the only one who can truly understand what it’s like when people look at you and see a ticking time bomb instead of a person. 

The kettle whistles–which seems awfully fast, but maybe Wanda was helping it along a little–and she busies herself with pouring the hot water and plopping in teabags. 

She sets a steaming mug across from him and settles in on the other side of the worn kitchen table. 

“Any fun Halloween plans?” she asks, and for a second the question is so normally mom that he can almost forget all the weirdness that lead to them sitting together in the back kitchen of the Avengers Mansion on a Sunday morning. 

Maybe it should have been harder for Tommy to accept that he’s, you know, the reincarnated soul-son of a mutant and a robot, but at a certain point he just decided to roll with it. In stories where the special underdog kid finds his real family, it’s always simple–he was sent away for his own protection or snatched from the arms of his loving family by mustache-twirling villains. There’s never robot husbands and supervillain grandfathers and demons with names from classical literature. 

But maybe it’s easier to believe because a whole family of loose cannons, of supervillains reformed and not-so-reformed, is honestly the only other kind of family he could belong to. He’s Tommy Shepherd. His birth parents sent him off to be a lab rat at juvie. It’s only fitting that his soul-family is just a screwed-up.

“Not really,” he says, trying to keep his voice light and probably failing judging by the way Wanda wraps her hands tighter around her mug and leans in. He shrugs. “Went to a party with Billy and some others but it wasn’t that great.”

Wanda doesn’t say anything, just nods. 

“I don’t think I’m good at it,” he says abruptly. “Being a twin, I mean.” He just left Billy after a one-sided heart-to-heart just so he could get wasted and didn’t even bother to check he got home okay. And ditched David as well. “Or maybe just the people thing in general.”

Wanda traces the handle of her mug with her thumb. Her nail polish is dark blue, which surprises him. It’s not, like, a rule that everything the Scarlet Witch wears has to be red, but he’s still surprised. “It’s not a job,” she says slowly. “You’re not getting graded on it.”

He snorts. “Yeah, and thank God. ” He flunked high school and hasn’t down a steady job for more than a few months without getting bored. 

“I don’t know where I’d be without Pietro,” she says, looking up from her mug of tea. “He was always there, even in my darkest moments. Always by my side. Always believing that I could be good, that I could be in control.”

A laugh tears its way out of Tommy’s throat, painful and without humor. “Yeah, but you had him from the beginning. How do I just–” he gestures wildly,” “become a twin?” 

“You were always a twin,” Wanda points out, but not snarkily. More like that she really doesn’t think it matters that they have different families, lead different lives, don’t even have the same last name. Like it’s something not even bizarre soul reincarnation could take away. 

It’s like: it was always just Tommy . Tommy eating alone at school and ignoring the cautious looks from other students, Tommy slinking through the house with his head low to stop his dad from being reminded of his existence, Tommy waiting in the sterile white rooms at juvie for the needles and the men in lab coats. Tommy Shepherd, who always had his own back because there was no one else to. Tommy, solo. Tommy, the lone wolf. Except now he’s…not. But old habits die hard. 

He takes a sip of tea to avoid saying anything else and it almost scalds his mouth. 

“You’re brothers,” Wanda says simply and he’s afraid she’s going to launch into some platitude about how they should always be there for each other. But all she says is, “No one ever said this was going to be easy.” 

Tommy sets his mug down again but doesn’t let go, the warm ceramic comforting in his hands. 

“I wish–” Wanda says, and her voice cracks slightly. “I wish I could have seen you grow up.”

Selfishly, he’s never really imagined what it must be like for her. To craft your perfect children only to have them yanked away. To then discover them again, grown and strangers. He can’t imagine it would have been like–to have been raised by a mom who just wants to sit with him in a sunlit kitchen and sip tea instead of one who left him behind to be shunted from detention center to living-weapon laboratory. 

“I think I do, too,” he admits, and realizes it’s not just for his sake. That some part of him doesn’t want her to have found her son grown into a hard-eyed teenager with scars that go deeper than skin. 

“But we have what we have,” Wanda says. “We are who we are.” From someone else, it could have sounded like defeat. From her, it sounds like acceptance. Or a reminder that what we have doesn’t always have to be what we have. 

“Yeah.” There’s so much he wants to put into a single word, but there’s also so much he can’t even put into thoughts, let alone words.

“Family is never easy.” Wanda bobs her teabag in and out of the mug. “But sometimes it’s all you have. Found or blood.”

“Or soul,” he says. It’s supposed to be a joke, but it doesn’t really come out as one. 

Wanda just nods solemnly. “You know, I still remember the moment I first held you in my arms. I knew it wouldn’t be the easiest for you, in so many ways. But I thought At least they’ll have each other. ”

“But we didn’t, really,” Tommy points out bitterly. “You met us together, but we barely knew each other.” How different would it have been, he wonders, if they had had each other? If Billy’d had someone to fend off the bullies, if he’d been there to spring Tommy from juvie even earlier?

He can’t imagine it. It’s like, in hindsight, his life has been defined just as much by absences as it was anything else. No brother. No protector. No truth of his origins.

Tommy gulps down the rest of the tea; it’s a little too hot but it gives him an excuse to sit in silence for another moment. He sets his mug down, empty, on the table. “Thanks. For the tea.” He shoves his hands in his pockets. “And the uh. Talk.” There’s still so much to untangle. His family tree is never going to simply, never going to be easy. But at least he’s got someone willing to make him a cup of tea and sit as he drinks it. 

“Anytime,” Wanda says.

He turns to leave, grabbing the gallon of milk out of the fridge and placing his mug by the overflowing sink. It’s funny to think of the Avengers as people who need to clean the kitchen, who have to rinse maple syrup off of plates and restock the soap. It seems so normal, so everyday. A reminder that beneath the flashy outfits and codenames, behind the medals and headlines, they’re all just people flailing through life and forgetting to do the dishes.

**

Tommy’s hangover has somewhat retreated by the time he steps outside of the Avengers Mansion, squinting in golden autumn sunlight. He should drop the milk back off at the Kaplan’s and see how Billy’s doing, but that’s not the only person he needs to talk to. Before he can totally lose his nerve, he takes out his phone and pulls up David’s number.

yo billy got the new shambling horde game 

wanna come kick some virtual zombie butt

Then he pockets his phone and zips back over to the Upper West Side before he can check for the tell-tale typing bubbles.

“Got the milk,” he says to Mrs. Kaplan in the kitchen, hoisting the gallon as proof. Thankfully, she doesn’t point out that it took the superspeed guy a suspiciously long time to go to the corner store and back or that the carton is strangely dented on one corner. 

Back in his room, he paces the length again and again, trying not to check his phone every two seconds. God, why is everyone else so slow? It’s not until he’s gotten desperate enough to start flinging dirty clothing into a laundry hamper that his phone finally buzzes with a response. 

One word: Sure.

He should probably try to play it cool and wait more than a millisecond before replying, but his thumbs are already flying to compose an answer.

any time works for me i’m just chilling at the kaplan’s apartment rn

David replies a minute later: I’m in the area, I’ll swing by in a few.

Then he actually does the load of laundry because at least it's something to occupy his mind other than what he’s going to actually say to David. 

A knock comes at the door and he jumps for it, yelping “I’ll get it!” even though he watched everyone else leave on various errands and excuses to enjoy the October sunlight.

He pauses for a second, hand on the doorknob, trying to compose himself.

It’s just David. And some video games. No big deal. 

Tommy takes a deep breath and opens the door.

“Hey, David.” His voice sounds mostly normal and un-strangled, which is probably one of his great accomplishments in life.

“Hey.” 

Tommy stands there for just an instant too long before he remembers to step aside and usher David inside and into the living room. 

The thing is, Tommy knows he’s not actually not bad at video games. He’s got a certain amount of reflexes and speed that come in handy. It’s just that he often lacks the patience that keeps him from throwing the remote aside at the slightest delay or failure. David, on the other hand, is methodically ruthless. 

“Again?!” Tommy throws the control down and flops onto the couch as zombies swarm his avatar for the third time.

“I told you not to go into the canyon,” David says, too intent on swatting aside zombies to look over at Tommy’s anguish. “Dead ends are how they get you–oh, fuck .” He tosses down his own remote as, onscreen, a zombie takes a liberal chomp out of his head.

“Not that easy, huh?” Tommy says, feeling vindicated. 

David crosses his hands behind his head and leans back on the couch, taking in the TV screen. “You know, this might be proof that my previous success at video games is just due to subconsciously absorbing cheats from other people’s brains.”

“Welcome to the way the rest of us live,” Tommy says drily.

The screen blinks TRY AGAIN? but neither of them make a move.

“Is it easier or harder without your powers?” Tommy asks. Let’s try for a smooth segue for once, Shepherd.

“Is what? Video games? Actually about the same, I’d say. Knowledge alone doesn’t give you the skills.” David drops his hands from behind his head.

“No, like…everything? Likeeven  just…understanding yourself.” 

David opens his mouth like he’s going to say something, then closes it for a moment, obviously trying to order his thoughts into words. Then opens it again. “Actually, yeah. I mean, it was hard at first. Like I’d lost another limb or something. But without the contents of everyone’s brains rattling around in my thoughts, I think it was easier to understand my thoughts? Who David Alleyne was on his own, you know?”

Tommy doesn’t, actually, because the only person who could really understand what that’s like is sitting across him from him on the couch, but he nods anyway. It’s like, he’d never want to lose his speed. Ever. But sometimes he wonders if just existing would be easier if he wasn’t vibrating on a frequency completely different from everyone else.

But that’s not really what he wants to talk about. Fuck it. “How did you know you liked guys?” he blurts out, and then clamps his mouth shut. Totally nailed that smooth segue. 

“I–hm.” Someone else would probably fire back another question or just shrug, but because David is David, he pauses for a moment, face thoughtful. “How I knew I was bi? I guess there were a lot of signs in hindsight, you know? I look back on some moments and I’m like David, how the fuck did you think you were heterosexual? Guys I thought were hot in more than just an aesthetic-observation way or obsessions that totally were not platonic. But it was easy to just brush it off, I guess. Like, you know, of course I think Wolverine is hot, I’m standing next to Jean Grey. Which isn’t even really how it works . But then I got depowered and it was just me in my brain and I had to own up to it.”

“I, uh,” Tommy says, unable to think of anything profound to say to that because suddenly the once sentence that’s been burning through his mind for weeks is impossible to contain. “I keep thinking about the time you kissed me at the afterparty.” David’s silent for a fraction of a second and oh, fuck, he’s just totally ruined this chill afternoon hangout, hasn’t he, so suddenly more words are flying out of his mouth just to fill the empty space. “Like, I know you weren’t actually kissing me and I know I said I didn’t like you that way because I didn’t think I did except I can’t stop thinking about it and I have no idea what this means. Except maybe that I like guys?” Then he has to stop for breath.

David just looks surprised. “I thought you were straight.”

“So did I .” Tommy realizes that his hands are clenched tight into fists, fingernails cutting crescents into his palms. He loosens his hands and watches color flood into the dents. “I mean, fuck, am I? I don’t even know. I feel like I don’t know anything about myself right now.”

“Hey, it’s all cool,” David says. “Shit’s complicated.”

Tommy lets out a long breath. “You can say that again.” 

“Seriously, I get it,” David says. Tommy still can’t look up and meet his gaze. David’s off making out with hot cowboys at Halloween parties and Tommy is…what? Still thinking about a weird sort-of kiss that didn’t even really count? 

“I mean, I kissed Teddy at one point,” David admits, and Tommy’s head whips up.

“You what ?” Teddy?

David drops his hands into his face with a groan. “I didn’t really mean it,” he says, voice muffled, and then lifts his face back up. “Not my best move in hindsight, but I think being closeted fucked me up. I’m not trying to be a homewrecker about your brother’s relationship, I promise.”

“Oh. Wow. That’s…”

David gives him a grin that’s equal parts wry and sad. “A relief?” His grin drops. “I…kind of regret it, actually. Really regret it. But, like, I know people who died. There’s a reason there aren’t that many depowered mutants my age. So when I was trapped in that weird dimension with Teddy, I really thought that could be it. I was just–I thought I was going to die without ever having really been myself and so I–yeah.  I kind of lost my head for a minute.”

“I get it,” Tommy says. “I mean, actually, I totally don’t get it because Teddy is nowhere near my type, but if anyone can understand reckless decisions, it’s me.”

That brings the grin back to David’s face a little, even if it doesn’t totally reach his eyes. “So. You like guys, but Teddy’s not your type. What is your type, then?”

Tommy’s used to things being slow–to watching people move through the air like it’s molasses, to dodge bullets and run circles around bad guys. But the way time slows down in this eternal instant has nothing to do with superspeed. He can see the afternoon light bounce off David’s glasses, smell his cologne.

“You,” he says simply.

And then, fuck it . Tommy Shepherd has never been good with words, not really. So he does the only thing he can think of.

He leans over and kisses David the way he’s been imagining doing since last night–and, if he’s being honest, a whole lot longer. 

Then the rest of his brain catches up with his impulse control and he leaps back across the couch. “I’m sorry! I know you had that thing with the hot cowboy from the party last and probably–”

“The cowboy?” David says. “What? I didn’t even get his name .”

“Oh.” 

“ Thomas ,” is all David says. “Oh my god, I don’t like the cowboy guy.” And then he’s the one kissing Tommy and holy shit David Alleyne is a good fucking kisser, it turns out. 

“So that's a no about cowboys, then?” Tommy says, pulling back for a breath. 

David laughs, his breath hot on Tommy’s cheeks. “Very much a no. I don’t think cowboys are my type.” 

He leans in for another kiss, but Tommy leans back again. “Are you sure? There are rodeos in New Jersey…”

“Don’t you dare.”

“In Montgomery!” Tommy says, gleefully. 

“I really don’t care about cowboys,” David says, and then resumes the most efficient way to make sure that Tommy can’t start spouting off facts about Cowtown, New Jersey, either. 

***

Thankfully, David is gone by the time Billy comes home because it really would have just been Tommy’s luck for his brother to walk in at the moment Tommy realized he now had several interesting and new ways to distract David’s from his zombie-killing attempts in his arsenal. 

“Survive the hangover okay?” Billy asks from the hallway.

Tommy jumps at the sound of his voice, dropping his glass of what and catching it before a single drop spills–hey, there’s plenty of advantages to superspeed that no one ever considers. “Okay,” he says, cautiously sipping water. He’s not exactly sure what Billy saw of him last night after he left the back stoop, but the fact that he can’t remember is probably not a good indication.

Billy steps into the kitchen and Tommy feels a weird jolt of déjà vu when he sees he hasn’t magicked his hair back to brown. Like looking in the mirror and seeing himself stare back, but not quite right.

“I’m okay,” Tommy says and, surprisingly, it’s not a lie. Maybe Wanda’s mint tea worked some miraculous cure. 

“You seemed kind of hammered,” Billy says, sticking his hands in his jacket pockets. “But then I lost you for a bit. Bigger party than I expected.” 

Tommy realizes with an awful, guilty start that there’s worry in his eyes. “It was all good,” he says. “I got a cab back. I don’t think your parents noticed.” 

“Um, no, they definitely noticed.” 

Oh. So much for stealth. 

“They were kind of annoyed, actually,” Billy continues. “Like under our roof, follow our rules kind of thing. I said I’d talk to you, though.”

Tommy sets his glass of water onto the counter–carefully, so carefully. 

“ Was it all good last?” Billy asks. “You just seemed…out of sorts when I talked to you. I just want to know you’re okay.” 

Tommy realizes, distantly, that he would have thought this kind of question was patronizing, once. Thought the look in Billy’s eyes was humiliating pity instead of genuine concern.

Maybe, at a certain point, he’d not only decided to stop fighting the expectations–mutant freak, criminal, outlaw, lab rat–but also stopped thinking people could see him as anything other than that.

“I was feeling kind of weird,” he says. “But I’m doing better now.”

“That’s good.”

“I saw Wanda earlier today,” Tommy offers. 

“Really?” Billy looks surprised.

“It was nice. We had tea.” Tommy realizes that none of that, obviously, is a good explanation for why he flouted curfew, and runs his hand through his hair. “I, um, kind of felt weird after talking to you at the party, I guess.”

Billy’s face falls. “Was it the Demiurge stuff? Because I know that can be a lot for people to wrap their heads around–”

Tommy shakes his head. “No. It was just…you seemed so certain about things. And guess I just felt like I didn’t know anything in comparison. Like, where I belong or what I believe.” His fingernails are digging into his palms, but he can't make himself unclench his hands. “You know who you are . You’re a hero. And I’m just…some high school drop-out and former human lab rat crashing in your parents’ spare bedroom while I’m between jobs.”

“I…” Billy takes his hands out of his pockets and crosses his arms. “Is that what you feel like? Tommy, I almost ended the universe this summer and before that I didn’t even want to get out of bed for months. Sometimes it feels like I have no idea what I’m capable of.”

“Yeah, but you have a family ,” Tommy bursts out. “You have parents that love you. You have a boyfriend that adores you.”

His words ring out into the kitchen, hanging in the silence.

“You have family,” Billy says quietly after a long moment. “You have me.” 

Fuck. Billy’s face is pale, like the instant after a slap before the color bleeds in. 

“I didn’t…” Tommy starts, but can’t think of what to say, how to make it better.

Neither of them know who’s older, really, but Tommy has always thought of Billy as the younger one. Like he’s the one who needs protecting. Like, sure, he knows Billy has been through some serious shit as well. But he’s the kind of guy who doesn’t let that close his heart off completely, doesn’t stop him from loving, doesn't let that stop him from seeing the good in people. 

Except, maybe, now Tommy’s said the wrong fucking thing and is about to test that.

“When I was younger, I, um,” he starts, haltingly, thinking of Wanda and her cup of mint tea in the sunny back kitchen of the Avengers Mansion. You were always a twin. “I had an imaginary friend. When I was four or five. I don’t really remember that well, but my dad says I wouldn’t shut up about him. I used to set him a place at the table and play games with him. Just, you know, little kid stuff. I was an only kid, except I didn’t like being alone. But my dad hated it, was always telling me to stop embarrassing myself and to live in the real world, to make some real friends. So I stopped. But even once I went to school and tried to make friends, I felt like I was still missing someone.” He lets out a long, shaky breath and unclenches his hands from their white-knuckled tightness. “I, um, never really saw my mom much after the divorce, but one time she told me that I was always crying when I was a baby, and nothing could get me to stop. Not food or toys or a lullaby. Like I was missing something she could never give me.”

He looks up across the kitchen and sees that Billy has uncrossed his arms from his defensive stance.

“I think I always missed you, before I even knew you existed,” Tommy says hoarsely. “I was always your brother, even if we’d never met.”

“Tommy…” Billy says, and it’s barely above a whisper. However he was going to finish that sentence, Tommy doesn’t wait to hear, because suddenly he’s surging across the kitchen and his arms are around Billy, chin resting on a shoulder the exact height of his.

“I’m sorry,” Tommy mutters into the collar of his brother’s jacket, the denim rough against his cheek. “I think…I think I’m the kind of person who isn’t used to good things.” And if a few tears drip down to stain the jean fabric with salt, well, who’s to say, really? 

“It’s okay,” Billy says, rubbing Tommy’s back like he’s a child. “I get it.” 

Maybe there was an emptiness always next to him, Tommy thinks. A kind of absence he could never put his finger on, a gap he could never fill, until he just decided that must be what living felt like–like you were always missing something. But now, maybe, that emptiness feels a little less empty. 

“Also,” Tommy says, pulling back a little from his brother’s embrace, “I’m bi and I kind of think I might be dating David?”

“Oh. Huh.” Billy looks a little surprised, then thoughtful. “Not Kate? I always kind of thought you two–”

“Not Kate,” Tommy confirms.

Billy laughs. “I guess neither of Wanda’s sons are straight, then. What a coincidence.”

“Not as much of a coincidence as reincarnated soul-twins finding each other in a second life,” Tommy points out.

“Tommy, we are literally from neighboring states . It’s not like you were born in Australia or something.”

“Still.”

“Still,” Billy agrees, a smile spreading across his face that Tommy knows mirrors his own.

Tommy reaches up and fluffs his brother’s hair. “I thought you’d have magicked your hair back to normal by now.”

“We’ve still got another night of Halloween parties,” Billy points out. “I figured neither of us wanted to scrounge around in my closet for more costumes.”

“Nah, you’re just afraid I’d find more proof of your emo phase if I looked around in there,” Tommy teases.

“That was ages ago,” Billy protests. 

“Yeah, and now you’re just auditioning for the role of the secret sixth member of One Direction.” Tommy rolls his eyes.

“Slain by my own kin! Betrayal!” Billy grabs at his heart in exaggerated pain. “Just because I have a sense of personal style and you don’t . Also, the fact that you knew how many members One Direction had off the top of your head is highly suspect.”

“I think I’m kind of done with Halloween parties right now,” Tommy admits, elegantly choosing to ignore that last accusation. “I’m not really looking to relive this morning’s headache. So you can spell your hair back to normal.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I’ll go blue instead,” Billy muses.

“If you become an eboy, I will literally murder you.”

He holds up his hands in surrender. “Fine, fine.” Billy pauses. “Out of curiosity, though, what was your imaginary friend called? I never had one because my parents warned me early on not to tell my Christian classmates that Santa wasn’t real because that would upset them and that made me feel too cool and grown-up for one.”

“I can’t tell you that,” Tommy hides his head in his hands. “It’s too embarrassing.” No matter the amount of twin bonding that may have just happened, he is not giving his brother any future ammunition by telling him that when he was four, he had an invisible kangaroo friend named Popsicle.

“That just makes me more intrigued.”

“It’s not happening .”

“I might come with you next time you go to synagogue,” Tommy says, changing the subject. “And I think we should both have tea with Wanda some time. It was actually kind of nice.”

“Nooo, don’t change the subject!” Billy grins evilly. “I want to know more about this imaginary friend.”

“How do you even know I’m changing the subject? Maybe that conversation has just naturally run its course.” Tommy protests.

“I just do. It’s a twin thing.” Billy taps his temple knowingly.

“Twin thing, my ass,” Tommy says. “You’re a reality warper, not a psychic.” But he finds himself smiling anyway.