Chapter Text
A boy named William didn’t die, but he almost did. His mother’s frantic mind wondered, in those awful, ambiguous moments, how her elderly mother would make it to the funeral from Poland. Most things matter. Most things don’t. Juxtapositions. Co-existence. William didn’t die, and his grandmother attended no funeral, but Rebecca screamed for her son, her boy, and when God returned him to her, she lived in the moments after.
Rebecca is so full of fear. She likes to keep William within sight, within reach, at all times, like if she can’t brush shoulders with him in the kitchen, she might forget he was real. Rebecca takes the train to work and the car collects dust in the garage.
When William turns sixteen, they take the train to his favourite Thai restaurant, in the city. William eats too much pad thai and recites his lines. He makes Rebecca and Jeff laugh and tells himself this is what it means to feel warm.
Jeff grades papers at the kitchen table, later, and William sits beside Rebecca on the couch, his head resting on her shoulder, eyes closed, listening to the scratching of his pen. Jeff is the sort of person who seems endlessly strong, endlessly brave, fearless in his entirety. His hands are strong but not rough. William can hear that Jeff is nowhere close to the inhumane act of fearlessness – he knows of his father’s panic. Most days, he wishes he didn’t.
“Mom,” he says, sitting up, trying to listen to his own head instead of hers. Far away, in the kitchen, he can hear the soft murmur of his father critiquing sentence structures. This is as close as William can get to home.
“Yeah, baby?” Rebecca prompts absently, clicking away at a sudoku on her phone.
“I want to learn how to drive. I’m sixteen now. Dad can teach me, if you don’t want to. He can take me to get my license on Tuesday.”
“Later. The roads are slippery,” she says, her fingers stilling, because Rebecca Kaplan is not particularly good at acknowledging her own fear. There’s always an excuse – Rebecca collects them like stamps.
“The roads are always slippery,” William counters. “It’s Spring. They’re not as bad as they could be.”
“Not as good as they could be, either,” Rebecca mutters, adding a three to a square. Her nails are click-click-clicking against the screen. There’s a woman who taps mugs of hot chocolate across the kitchen table with only her mind – click-click-clicking, tap-tap-tapping. The woman isn’t here, and she wouldn’t find her son if she did. This is Rebecca and her son, William, William, William.
“We’ll be careful. We won’t practise too soon after it rains, we’ll go on the warm days. Mom. Mom.”
She sighs, turning her phone off and putting it aside. “On average, 1.19 million people die a year because of car crashes, you know.”
“0.7% of car crashes are fatal,” he offers, because he does know. They are researchers, the both of them. He knows he gets it from her. He’s so full of fear, too, that sometimes he thinks it’s spilling out of his body. There’s power in his veins, but there is also deep, intrinsic fear.
“Motor vehicles are the number one leading cause of death for people aged 13 to 19.” Rebecca’s voice is very small, and very unlike hers.
“I know,” he says, reaching out and holding her cold hand with both of his own. “I think that’s why I need to. I… I can’t… I don’t want it to… I’m scared, Mom, and I think this is what I need to do. For me. Will you support and enable me to achieve that?”
Rebecca stays silent for a long moment, tracing the lines on William’s palms. Then, she says “now, you be careful,” and draws him close, kissing his hair to hide her tears. “And wear your seatbelt!”
“Always, Mom,” William says, and let’s himself be held.
---
Except William Kaplan is dead – he is one of 1.19 million people, three years ago, that lost their lives. He is in the 0.7%. Billy inherited no legacies from Rebecca – he stole them, a quick-handed pickpocket that heard the things he wasn’t supposed to.
“I am Billy Maximoff,” he tells the mirror, and then he apologises for it. “I’ll never make it up to you,” he admits, reaching out and touching the reflection’s face – the glass is cold. And then he turns away, because if he starts talking to William Kaplan, maybe he’ll never stop.
He doesn’t promise the reflection that he will grieve him, but it is a weight singularly on his shoulders. No one else in the world knows to grieve William. Billy will keep up the façade, the con, continue the part he has cast himself in, but in private, he won’t forget what he stole, or who he stole it from.
“Sometimes, boys die,” Agatha had said, and Billy had heard it before she finished speaking. Her thoughts were thick, heavy, and sad in the way that ached, like pressing on bruises, like tired bones. She didn’t usually let him listen – something was wrong, but something was always wrong. Sometimes, boys die, but Billy hadn’t, and there is no grave for William Kaplan. There is no grief for him, none at all, except for Billy’s.
If that’s all Billy can give the boy in the mirror, he will give it in absolution.
---
I can’t quite tell you the beginning. Stories don’t work that way. They are fluid and rushing, like rivers, like time. It begs for questions that I do not have the answers to – the chicken or the egg, the phoenix or the flame, peace or war. So, choose it for yourself. Was it now, with Billy’s stolen hands on the wheel and his feet pressed to the accelerator? William had died in this very car, and now his body took it driving in the depths of the night. Was that it? The catalyst? Billy could have stayed in William’s bedroom, wearing down the floorboards and watching the sky through glass. But he did not. He learned to drive.
Or here – the opening bars of Lorna Wu’s masterpiece, played again and again and again. I have learned the lesson of all that’s foul and fair – have you? Have you learnt it yet? This is a ballad and a shield and a sword, a plea and the solidification of love, of grief. This is just a song. Which is it? Does it start here, do you think?
Maybe it starts with the Google search results of witchcraft, or in Agatha Harkness’ house, or maybe it started, long ago, in the Maximoff’s, down the street. You decide. You tell me.
It could, conceivably, have started here, now – Agatha waves at the neighbours and Billy pulls out of the driveway. He takes a right, and then two lefts. He doesn’t know where he’s going, but maybe he doesn’t have to. The radio hums between them. There is a whole world, stretching out in front of them. William had a life here but Billy doesn’t know when he’ll return, or if.
Billy has spent three years learning how to become William Kaplan. Now, the rug has been pulled out from under his feet. He will use William’s body, a puppet to a puppet master, but he must learn how to live as Billy Maximoff.
He takes a deep breath – another right, onto a long, straight road that stretches on and on, maybe forever.
“Step on it, hotshot,” Agatha says gleefully. The car speeds on.
---
“I’m not going to come home,” Billy says, when Robin inevitably calls.
“Hm,” she says. “I wasn’t asking you to.”
“My parents-”
“I don’t do things for other people,” Robin interrupts.
Billy thinks of Latin and hammocks and warm cups of tea. “That’s a lie.”
“Alright. I’m not doing this because I’ve been asked to. I’m checking that you’re okay.”
He thinks about it, leaning back against a tree. “I will be,” he says, and it feels true.
“Me too,” Robin promises. “I’m going to be okay, and you’re going to come visit me in England and we’ll be stereotypical tea drinkers.”
“That sounds nice,” Billy says, and it does. Maybe Robin’s not really his cousin, but he’d never lied about that, not to her. She would tell him, later, across warm mugs, whether or not he was a bad person, and he would try and believe her, try and be alright with her verdict. “Mind if I bring a guest?”
“Who are you looking for?” Robin asks, curious, instead of answering.
“Would you believe me if I said myself?”
“Yes. I know who you are. You don’t have to. Maybe you’re not supposed to. Yet.” There’s a pause. Billy waits – he knows Robin’s thought patterns intimately enough to wait, at least.
“But there’s someone else, isn’t there?” Robin continues, “You’ve got a lead on Tommy.”
Billy sighs, long and suffering. “He’s out there, now. I’ve just got to find him.”
“You’ll find him, Will.”
“Yeah, okay.”
“No, really. Listen to me. You are going to find Tommy. I believe in you, even if you don’t believe in yourself yet.”
“Thanks, Robin,” Billy says, and blinks furiously.
It’s then that Agatha saunters up. “ROBIN HOOD-”
“Love you, bye!” Billy says and hangs up.
“SAVE THE RABBIT! SAVE THE RABBIT! SAVE THE RABBIT!”
“Are you ever quiet?”
“Overrated. Justice for Señor Scratchy! My darling, my life and soul-”
“Will you be quiet if I ask Eddie to look after your rabbit?”
“I’ll consider it. And he has a name, Billius, say it with me now – Señ-or Scratch-y, did you get that, with an S-”
“God, who invited you-”
“I did!” Agatha says, and grins in delight. “Tell your boy toy that Señor Scratchy likes mice when he’s missing me and crickets in the morning. Oh, and, er, he should probably keep any birds of particular importance out of reach. Very far out of reach – you would be surprised by that rabbit, once he gets hopping.”
Billy sighs and flounces back to the car to call Eddie in peace.
(It’s in vain, of course. Agatha insists on giving Eddie his endlessly complicated instructions directly. Billy tries to apologise, but she’s already hung up.)
---
The sky darkens, and the streetlamps turn on. They play David Bowie hits on the radio, much to Agatha’s delight. She turns it up far too loud and sings even louder. It is not peaceful.
“Sing, Billy boy. You know you want to!”
So, with no witnesses but Agatha Harkness, Billy gives in to his urge. He belts out the words and winds the window down to feel the wind on his cheeks and, for the first time in what feels like a long time, he grins.
Agatha, pale and ghostly, grins back.
---
Finally, as the stars get brighter and they pass fewer and fewer other cars, Billy’s eyes begin to blur. His shoulders ache from clenching the wheel.
“Alrighty,” Agatha claps her hands. “Looks like we’re spending the night in – where are we? – Marlboro. Joy. This is exactly what I wanted to spend my death doing, thank you.”
“We can’t – we can’t stop,” Billy says, horrified. “I’ll get a coffee at the next open café we find. It’s fine. I’m fine.”
“Hm,” Agatha sniffs. “Well maybe I’m not fine. I’d like to spend the night outside of this blasted car, if that’s alright with you.”
“You’re welcome to sit on the roof. Or, heck, you can leave. No one asked you to be here.”
“I’m going to pretend you didn’t just say that,” Agatha flicks her shining hair over her shoulder.
“I’m finding Tommy. That’s why I’m here. This isn’t just some joy ride, Agatha. This is important.”
“And important things need non-sleep deprived drivers. Listen to me, kid. Tommy isn’t going anywhere. He’ll still be waiting in the morning.”
“No. I’m not stopping because you’re slightly uncomfortable.”
“We’re a bit beyond slightly,” she mutters, and then she reaches out, her hand solidifying, and grabs hold of the steering wheel, pulling it towards her.
“Agatha!” Billy screams.
“Yes, Bill-o? Have you changed your mind about driving all night?”
“Okay, yes! Whatever! Just let go!”
“Now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” She looks unbearably smug as Billy frantically rights the car.
“What the fuck, you’re crazy-”
“Guilty as charged.”
“Jesus Christ,” Billy groans, heart still thumping, and parks outside the Marlboro EcoMotel.
When he uses the money he had extracted from Rebecca’s card to pay for a room, he tries very hard not to feel guilty. Agatha floats in through the outmost wall and does her best to scare him while he brushes his teeth. Billy is quickly learning that Agatha is enjoying her death far too much.
There is a painting of the ocean opposite the bed – Billy lies and stares at it. He does not have to wonder what it feels like to drown, to have the water press down, to gasp and choke and feel fear right down to the marrow. He already knows.
Billy breathed for Tommy – he did not breathe for the boy in the pool.
---
He dreams, that night, of falling, of the clang of swords on swords, of the way knives slice through strawberries. He wakes up, gasping, and checks his fingernails for Lilia’s blood. Billy thinks he can feel it, drying there, a crimson reminder of what he has become. Skewered strawberries. Bloodstained dresses. Stiffening corpses.
Agatha is sitting beside the bed, like the world’s strangest guard dog. She turns away abruptly when he tilts his face to look at her, but Billy has seen the look on her face – he feels oddly protected. Comforted.
Even facing the other direction, Agatha glows a bright, burning silver in the dim room. Billy thinks, sleepily, of the moon in a starless sky. He thinks of nightlights, of scarlet out the window and gold set into a forehead. This time, when he falls asleep, he dreams of being warm.
---
In the morning, Billy scrubs at his fingers until Agatha turns the tap off. He stares down at them – they are red, raw, and a little tender.
“I didn’t know we were trying to drain this dump of its entire water supply,” Agatha says. “If that’s the case, I’ll go investigate the pipes. Gotta go to the source, rookie. It’s alright – you’ll learn. You have me.”
Billy stares into the mirror, unseeing, for a long time. When he does return to the bedroom, there is a tube of cherry hand cream lying on the bed, and Agatha is nowhere to be found.
They should probably get out of here before the managers discover the havoc Agatha has undoubtedly wreaked on the water system.
---
“How do I know where to go?” Billy asks, later, waiting at an intersection, when they have successfully fled the scene of the crime.
“You don’t! You’ll know when you get there.”
“How will I know?”
“Okay, sorry, I’ll know when we get there.”
“Again, how?”
“So many questions! It’s simple logic, pumpkin. I’m basically dead. Been there and returned, so to speak. As has Timmy-"
"Tommy-"
"So, obviously, I'll be able to know. Kaboom.”
“This doesn’t seem like a very well thought out plan,” Billy says doubtfully.
“Nonsense!”
“I hope you know what you’re doing, Agatha,” he warns. “This is my brother we’re talking about.”
“Ugh. So serious. Lighten up! This is a once in a lifetime opportunity.”
“Going on a road trip?”
“Going on a road trip with me.”
“From what I’ve heard, you’ve gone on plenty of road trips.”
“Ha! Alright, good point. Going on a road trip with me and surviving it. You lucky boy.”
“I’m thrilled. Truly.”
“You’re an ungrateful swine, is what you are,” Agatha huffs, and then she turns the music up too loud and smirks like she’s won.
---
It only takes an hour and a half to reach Atlantic City from Marlboro Township. They drive through Pleasantville – Agatha scoffs – and Billy parks the car at Ducktown. He gets out, unlaces his shoes, and walks barefoot through the warm sand. He walks very far, until his body is shaking and he stands, a lone figure, staring out at the sea.
“Tommy always wanted a pet duck,” he says quietly. His hands tremble.
“No taste with that kid,” Agatha says, using Billy’s head as a drum. “Everyone knows rabbits are the superior pets. Don’t you worry – you’re a close second, Billaroo. Or – a second, anyway.”
With that last impartment of wisdom, Agatha jumps down from where she had perched, weightless, on his shoulders, and disappears into the water, no doubt planning to terrorise all those souls unfortunate enough to be kayaking in the nearby area.
Billy sits down and cards his fingers through the sand. Once, his father had done this with the soil of a dying city. He had cupped the soil in his fist and brought it home to coax life out of it. Billy will not take the sand from this beach, but he digs and digs, sand underneath his fingernails, like maybe he could find what he was looking for.
Agatha comes back, eventually. The sun is high in the sky. She sings out his name and performs a few backflips that he doesn’t watch. He stares out at the horizon and thinks about foreign shores.
“This isn’t right, is it,” he says dully.
“Hm,” Agatha says, stilling, looking out at the water like she’s thinking. “Not quite, poppet. Some things require time.”
“Alright,” Billy says, and walks back to the car. Agatha spreads the atlas on her knees and while she decides, Billy takes them half an hour to Somers Point, which is flat and bright and very beautiful, but not right at all.
Agatha complains until Billy lets them stop off at The Crab Trap. Agatha makes faces at the other patrons while Billy eats, and people watches harshly – “wrong shade, honey,” and “precious few can pull of a coat like The Coat. You are not one of them,” and “ooh, she’s cheating with his sister,” – until Billy is laughing over her observations and trading them back with ones of his own.
She looks very pleased when they leave the restaurant and insists on taking the driver’s seat. “I’ve decided where we’re going,” she exclaims proudly, and Billy settles back into the passenger seat and promptly falls asleep to the humming of the engine.
---
When he wakes again – gasping, but under the cover of a coughing fit – the grass beside them and the trees above them are very bright and very green. “Welcome to New Hope, pet,” Agatha drawls, and Billy glances at her.
“Philly?”
“Yes, we are in Philadelphia. Astounding observation.” He rolls his eyes. “I knew a Philadelphia once, you know. She particularly enjoyed turning people into frogs to feed to her children.”
“Strange.”
“Yes, well, she didn’t seem to enjoy being turned into a frog nearly as much. Karma, you know.” Agatha shrugs, and Billy settles back into his seat, his breathing returning to it’s normal rate.
“Oh, and you’ve probably got a few speeding fines. It’s not like it’s my fault that they want you to go so mind-numbingly slow. Uh-uh” – when he opens his mouth to protest – “Life is an adventure, witchling. Ooh, I like that. Write it down. Are you writing it down?”
“Eyes on the road.”
“I’m adventuring, Maximoff. Don’t crush my brave spirit. You’re writing. What are you writing?”
“There… will… be… consequences for trying… to… banish a ghost. Best not to… anger the physical form… of death. Again. Full stop.”
“Oh, I disagree. An angry Rio Vidal is particularly lovely,” Agatha says, and doesn’t even have the decency to acknowledge the face Billy makes at her.
---
“I don’t deserve it,” Billy says, his eyes fixed firmly on the road in front of him. He’s driving now, Agatha sprawled out on the passenger seat with her bare feet on the dashboard, despite his many complaints.
“It’s not about deserving,” Agatha replies. Her voice is as soft as Billy’s ever heard it. “Sometimes, you can win survival. You can fight for it - and you have to fight for it, Billy, we always have to fight for it - but it’s not earnt, fair and square, given out like a reward, a gold star. It’s not about moral character. Because then it wouldn’t have-”
She cuts herself off, and swallows loudly. He does her the dignity of not looking at her face. “Well, Billy. Sometimes boys die, but sometimes they live.”
---
They arrive at Erie soon after 9. They left the hotel room this morning at 9 as well. It has been a long 12 hours. Billy gets out of the car, stretching, and breathes in, deep, and out, long. The chill is bitter. This is a life worth living. He reminds himself that he is alive. William is not, but that can’t mean that he doesn’t live every second of this gift. It means he has to try, harder than anything.
---
Agatha wants to stay at Erie for longer. Billy sits down on the front steps outside reception, breathes in, breathes out, and says “Tommy’s not here,” taking the car keys out of his pocket.
“He’s not going to hate you because of one teensy little holiday. Come on. I deserve it, Billikins. I died, remember?”
“I don’t care,” he says, harshly. He doesn’t reverse over her unsolidified body, but he does leave her standing on the curb.
He lasts barely twenty minutes before he curses and turns the car around.
---
See, here is the thing:
Agatha is irritating, pushy, obnoxious, infuriating, loud, crazy, reckless, pointlessly argumentative, and it’s all with a careful purpose. But Billy’s glad she’s here, anyway. The car would be too quiet without her out of time humming. He might not have spoken to another person in weeks if it weren’t for Agatha.
And, despite everything, Billy can’t seem to stop himself from loving her.
(It reminded him, faintly, of his family – slightly out of reach, but Agatha is right here, right here, right here. It reminded him, faintly, of his family – it reminds me, faintly, of mine.)