Archive of Our Own

Tommy ran. Until the world was a blur around him. The cold November rain, the first harbinger of winter, stung sharply, like sand falling at high speed onto his skin.

He should have been at their birthday party.

Lilia had warned him it would be a lot for him, and he'd told her it would be fine. It was just a stupid party, and mostly Billy's and William's anyway.

By a cruel twist of fate, William's birthday was the day after theirs had been.

The joint "4 & 17" birthday had been all Billy would talk about for weeks.

"We've never had a birthday together! It's going to be the best."

Tommy had thought it would be fine. He'd worn the stupid paper hat and waved at all Billy's classmates who knew him as "those witches' son," and tried to hide how much he hated the whole thing.

And the second Billy was distracted with Boyf, Tommy had taken one look at their cake and his resolve had imploded. He'd bolted out of there.

His feet crossed the town line between West and Eastview, the gust that followed him pitched the welcome sign on its side. He wove through traffic the way Agatha had made him swear up and down he'd never do.

"They can't even catch me."

"They can't see you. I did not put you back in a body for you to get it scattered across the highway."

Tommy had made the mistake of complaining to Billy about that rule.

"Why's it bother you? Mama's just worried you'll get hurt."

Now he wove between the cars at rush hour on the road out of town, just because he could, shivering as he felt the pressure of a car coming too close on his left.

"On the plus side it would be quick. You wouldn't even have time to feel it - those were my favorite deaths you know. You all wouldn't know you were dead and then I'd have to come fish you out of your body and get to know you - ow!"

"Are you seriously encouraging him to run in traffic?"

"I'm just saying quick deaths can be a plus."

"Thats not a plus side, Dear."

Tommy ran north, then south, up and down the highway until he stopped feeling the sting of the rain pelting his skin at highspeed.

The time the party should have gotten into full swing came and went. It was sunset as he approached the next town over. He'd get somewhere well lit, before it got fully dark and the backroads would be too dangerous

He wasn't stupid after all.

His run took him along the main route that wound from Westview into neighboring Ridgeview, packed with traffic commuting home. He was loads faster, dodging between the cars with ease as trees made way to warehouses and office parks and then the packed double-lane streets of the downtown.

He followed the signs to the interstate. It was lit and plenty of space. No danger in running after dark there, maybe he would find a rest stop to eat at until the party was over and tell Billy he'd gotten tired and lost track of time.

It's not like Billy would know the truth. Tommy curled a hand around the charm that now constantly hung around his neck. Agatha had made one for he and the Kaplans months ago.

"Billy's not going to be able to fully control the telepathy for a while. Since you three can't block him on your own, these charms will ensure your thoughts get some privacy."

It was a good thing. Tommy considered as he ran. With Billy no longer in his head, he never had to know it was still hard for Tommy to hear him call other parents mom and dad, to hear him aspire to be nothing like Wanda. And Billy never had to know that Tommy hated the idea of their first real birthday party. He never had to know how angry and sad the whole thing made him.

It turned out when Tommy didn't have Billy in his head all the time, it was goddamned easy to lie to him.

Maybe it also meant he'd never learned how to talk to him too.

Tommy's eyes felt watery, and it had nothing at all to do with the rain pelting his face. He growled and rounded a bend at a yellow light.

A car was speeding through the light on his left. He raced around the front hood of it, a blur of motion too fast for the car or even the street cameras to catch.

Too fast for pedestrians to see too. He rounded the hood of the car and saw to his horror a toddler holding hands with their mom, trailing behind as they crossed the intersection. Tommy hadn't seem him over the car's hood. He was too close now to dodge. And he was moving at the maximal speed his body would allow. Too fast to stop. He would hit the kid or the car.

Tommy threw his body towards the car, feeling the dizzying lurch and pressure as he exceeded the limits of speed he could control, momentum spun him off his feet. He careened into the car as he squeezed his eyes shut and threw his arms towards his face.

Just as he expected to feel the impact, a prickling sensation overtook his whole body. Tommy heard the honk of horns and the skid of tires in the background. But he didnt feel the collision. He squinted his eyes open and gaped as he realized he was moving through the solid body of the car.

His feet somehow still touched the ground, stumbling and pitching him forwards as his body went through the motions of regaining his balance. He passed completely through the car and picked up speed again, passing screaming pedestrians before they had time to get a proper look at him, running down the median and diving towards a side street, There, he threw himself against a wall, wincing as the impact spread across his shoulders.

Panting, he slumped onto the ground. "What the fuck?"

Finally, he looked down at himself and saw a fading glimmer of magic, still prickling just under his skin. Purple. Agatha's.

Tommy looked all around, but there was no sign of his guardian anywhere around him. Then, as the purple shimmer faded from his skin he felt something crackle on the bottom of his shoes. Tommy yanked them off, noticing how the bottoms had been torn to shreds. Not really uncommon for his shoes, but these had been new…

He squinted. There was a smoking piece of paper sticking out of one of the rended open toes, the crackling was the purple sparks consuming it. He reached in and fished the paper out, hissing as the sparks landed on his fingers. He shook the paper until it no longer seemed like it would catch fire and unfolded it.

The sparking was coming from an incantation steadily smoldering to ash on the paper. Through the incinerating spell, he cold still make out a message written on the paper in obnoxiously bold sharpie.

COLLISION INSURANCE.

There was a note under it in decidedly aggressive pen.

"These only work once, so you had better come home before you run into anything else. XO."

He crumpled the paper up, casting it away with a scowl. Frustration and shame at war in him.

He should call them.

Why did they even care about him? He huffed and curled his arms around his knees. He often wondered how long it would take Agatha and Rio and their coven to get tired of him. Billy was their witchling. He was the one with the extraordinary magic. Next to him, super speed was a party trick. Billy was the one they called their son as easily as breathing.

That wasn't fair… Tommy curled his arms around his knees. Agatha had told him she could write parent or guardian on the school forms. Whichever he wanted. It was Tommy who'd picked guardian. Tommy who'd put up this boundary, they had only ever respected what he wanted. It was his own fault he couldn't embrace the family who'd welcomed him. It was his own fault he felt like the outsider.

Frustrated, he pushed himself to his feet. His shoes now ruined, he shuffled down the streets of Ridgeview, watching the wrecked rubber bottoms flop open with each step.

It was nearly dark now. He bit his lip. Conscious of his phone zipped in the pocket of his jacket. They'd probably called already. Someone would come looking soon, no doubt. He hoped it was Alice or Lilia. They always gave him space when he wanted it. Agatha always managed to get in his head. For someone who had never read his mind she was still better at understanding his thoughts than even Billy. It was annoying. It was uncomfortable.

He scuffed his exposed toes against the sidewalk, still burnt and purple from the spell that had just saved his ass. A spell she must have redone for every pair of shoes he'd burned through in the past three months. He swallowed the lump in his throat.

It would be easier if she didn't care. Shepherd knew what it was like when they didn't care. It was nice. He could go where he wanted and do as he liked. In Shepherd's experience the nice didn't last. Foster families pretended you mattered for a while. Until they got tired of it. Or until you screwed up. A few months and then they dropped the act and it all got easier for everyone. The longest a placement had gone okay for Shepherd was three months.

It had been four months now since they'd found Tommy in Shepherd's body and brought him home to his brother.

He sighed, crossing his arms as he walked. No matter what the kids at his new school teasingly called him, it was Billy who was the real witches' son, with the magic to show for it. Tommy had been elated to see him at first. Elated to belong to someone again, until it sunk in that Billy belonged to new people now. The hurt of it came in waves. Some days it felt like he'd gotten the fuck over it. Others it stung so deeply that no logic he came up with could shake off the hurt.

At the party, all it had taken was one look at Billy's four parents laughing together around the giant cake for the hurt to swallow him whole.

Billy had gone and got himself four new parents and a whole coven and even a new sibling on the way all while Tommy was still reeling from being in a body at all. A body that was too tall and gangly. That was old enough to be in Billy's junior class, but had missed enough school to barely squeak into ninth grade. A body that knew all about all the ways people didn't give a damn about you when you didn't belong to them.

Billy said he didn't remember William at all.

Tommy wished he remembered less of Shepherd. Instead he felt like he knew him backwards and forwards. Flashes of Shepherd's worst memories still kept him up at night.

It was Tommy Maximoff's brief existence that was an impenetrable box in his mind. A few moments stood out, crystalized memories from the end of the hex. They haunted him: knowing the pain of Westview's trapped residents, being at the mercy of a dark witch who only wanted his mother's power. Hearing his parents voices for the last time.

"Big day today. Your mother and I… are very proud of you both.

"Big day today. Your mother and I… are very proud of you both.

"Very proud. You know, a family is forever. We could never truly leave each other even if we tried. You know that, right?

Tommy crossed his arms.

Billy had been trying to leave them behind him. He hadn't talked about their Mom and Dad in ages. And before he'd got his telepathy blocking charm, Billy even used to get upset whenever Tommy thought about them. Especially their mom. Billy still held everything about the hex, about the both of them dying, against her.

That was the best thing about Billy no longer being in his head, he'd never know how much Tommy still thought about their parents. Well, wondered about was more accurate. He wondered about them a lot, about everything he didn't know. He'd run out of fragments of memories to have new thoughts about a while ago.

Maybe it was different for Billy. Maybe his magic made him remember more. Maybe he didn't feel it slipping away like Tommy did. Billy got to run freely into this new life while Tommy was stuck, paralyzed by a guilt that made everything offered to him in this new family feel like a horrible betrayal.

"Boys, thanks for choosing me to be your Mom,"

He was starting to forget what her voice sounded like.

It made every time Billy called Agatha 'Mama' feel like a punch in the guts.

Recently, he'd started calling Rio 'Mami' too.

The rain had formed puddles all over the sidewalk, sloshing cold and uncomfortable in Tommy's wrecked shoes. It would be dangerous to run home barefoot in the dark.

He should call them. But then they'd be concerned. What was wrong? they'd demand. They'd pester him with all the questions he'd run away from tonight. Why didn't he want to go to the party? Did he want to talk about it?

No.

The little voice in his head that was Shepherd said they'd be mad at him for leaving anyway. He'd already screwed up a big day. Might as well delay the inevitable and stay out a while.

Then again, Shepherd was wrong about a lot of things. He had thought they'd be mad at Tommy for causing trouble when Tommy came home from his first week of ninth grade with a black eye.

A knife had wound up stabbed through the bully's locker instead.

Shepherd had also thought they'd get mad when he failed the first quiz.

Instead his guardians and their coven had all taken turns tutoring him.

This is bigger than a quiz, Shepherd reminded him. You ran away from the birthday party they all put together. And you wrecked your new shoes.

"Shut up."

Well it's not like you have anyone else left who you're sure gives a damn.

Tommy kicked a pebble on the sidewalk with all the force his super speed could muster. It clattered off into the distance as the bruising impact hit his big toe with a hard thud. He hissed and swore as the pain jolted up his leg, casting his eyes around to see if anyone had seen.

His eyes caught on a storefront nearby, posters plastered all over its front wall, some on top of the others. Bold black lettering over a shock of strawberry blond hair drew his eye.

HAVE YOU SEEN-

Tommy strode up to the store front, tearing away the more recent posters on top of this one, until he could clearly see the ten year old faces of he and Billy staring back, their original faces from the hex. He read the writing on the poster.

HAVE YOU SEEN MY GRANDSONS

Vanished from Westview in the wake of the anomaly. Billy and Tommy. Last seen, aged 10. They are the last family I have left. Please call if you have any information that could help me find them.

There was another language underneath it. Tommy only recognized his and Billy's names; it was Sokovian, he realized. He could vaguely recall his mom's lingering accent at home saying his name in her mother tongue. He heard it vaguely now, like it echoed through a long tunnel.

There were tear-away tabs with a phone number on the bottom of the poster. Most of them had been taken now. But there was one left dangling on the right side.

Tommy tore it off. He took out his phone.

What the fuck are you doing? Shepherd nagged him. This is stupid!

Tommy shoved Shepherd's opinions to the back of his mind as he dialed the number and held the phone to his ear, listening to it ring with baited breath.

It rang a long time. At least ten rings. He began to wonder if it would go on forever when, finally, a man's voice answered. "Ahoj? Hello?"

Tommy gulped.

"You're calling about my grandsons? Ano? Do you have information or not? I have many people calling with false hope, you better not be one."

"You're my grandpa?"

There was a pause over the line. Swearing in what he thought was Sokovian. "Billy?"

"It's Tommy."

"Tommy," his grandfather sounded gruff and warm, nothing like the kind of grumpy old man he'd expected. Something nervous and relieved uncoiled in Tommy's chest. "Where are you, son?"

"I… I've been. Um. It's hard to explain. But I've been in Eastview the past few months."

"So close this whole time," his grandfather said. "We looked everywhere for you. We were devastated when we lost your mother. Is Billy with you now?"

"Ju-just me. Billy's at home. I found your poster in Ridgeview."

"Well that's very good. We had trouble getting them into East and Westview. There's still some magic or something around there."

"Um. That's probably just to protect us. SWORD came to try to talk to us a few months ago and ask if we wanted to train with them. Didn't go so well for them."

"That report was sealed. I wondered what happened there."

"Our guardians are protective." Tommy hedged. He didn't know why he hesitated. This man had raised Wanda after all, would he really care about Tommy being raised by other witches? But his new family always said to be careful who he told about magic. And Shepherd thought the less someone knew about you, the better.

The coven had been fine telling the Kaplans about magic. Maybe they would meet his grandfather and decide he was trustworthy enough to tell too. Maybe his grandfather even lived nearby. The thought made Tommy smile. He could have a place to belong again. Just like William and Billy. "I'm okay, by the way. We're okay. There's people taking care of us."

"I'm so relieved," his grandfather said. "Don't you worry, we're going to get you and your brother home soon. Back where you belong."

"You, um…" He desperately wanted to hear more about this man. "You have really good English."

His grandfather laughed as Tommy kept strolling along the street. A frigid chill was settling in as the sun set. Making his exposed toes numb. Maybe he could find a place that wouldn't mind him hanging out inside out of the rain.

"I have to have good English in my work," his grandfather said.

"Where did you work?"

"I'm in the family business," he said, and chuckled as if it were a joke of some kind. "Big international enterprise. We're everywhere."

"I don't remember if Mom ever talked about it."

He rounded a corner as his grandfather began to tell him how Wanda had started working for the family business at 11 years old to help support the family in Sokovia.

"Her powers were incredibly useful," his grandfather said. "Little Pietro was quick as a whip too, just like you are. Aren't you?"

Tomy laughed. "I didn't know Uncle Pietro was fast." He wasn't the only one in his family!

"Very fast. It got him into trouble sometimes. Hopefully you are less trouble than him."

The words made Tommy furrow his brows, confused by the phrasing. But he brushed the feeling off as he listened to his grandfather talk about some of Pietro's misadventures. He didn't know what about the words set him on edge, it was silly, he decided. He tried to push disquiet aside.

He felt the rumble of an approaching car on the road behind him. Shepherd urged him to look at it. The sidewalks downtown were rolling up, he reminded Tommy. This was a quiet side street. It was weird for a car to be down here.

A chill went up the back of his neck. Tommy turned around.

He had time to see the black van, the same kind of black van that had stalked him in his new body all over the country before Agatha and the coven had found him months ago. He had time to jolt forwards at high speed before he registered the tiny pinprick of pain in his shoulder. His body pitched forwards, suddenly heavy and his eyes rolled up as he landed face first on the sidewalk. His phone clattered from his hand.

Hands picked him up under the shoulders, tearing his jacket off and stabbing a longer needle into his neck, it made his mind feel cloudy. He tried to jerk free but his body suddenly felt like lead.

You promised we'd never be locked up again! Shephered panicked as Tommy was dragged towards the back of the van. Get up, do something!

Disoriented, Tommy saw his phone still lit up on the sidewalk as he was lifted into the vehicle. There were missed texts and calls from Rio and Agatha and Billy on the screen.

He blacked out to the sound of the van doors slamming closed. Guilt roared up afresh.

He should have stayed. He should have called them.

Tommy bolted awake from a nightmare about drowning to the terrifying reality of water trapped in his mouth

He couldn't breath. He lurched violently up and forwards, trying to find the surface and heard a shout.

"What the fuck kid?" a man demanded as he tried to breathe.

Something was in the way of his gasps. The reason for the water: something soggy stuffed in his mouth.

"Just breathe through your nose." A second voice, high and cranky, "If youre good we'll see about that gag coming out when we get home."

He blinked rapidly, taking in the bare interior of a van: the closed, locked door to the cab and the double locked doors in the back. Two people in body armor were facing him, a man and woman who looked thoroughly bored by his struggle with the gag. They both had handguns resting casually across their laps.

A scrape of metal shifting aside, a small opening in the door between the front and back, a second man calling from up front. "He shoulda stayed out for a few hours! Did you fuck up the dose?"

"I gave him double the normie one!" the man across from him grumbled.

"Relax, he's a Maximoff." the woman drawled "This was expected. They're all a pain in the ass at first. Don't worry. We got him under control."

Tommy tried to lift his hand to tear the gag out and realized his hands and feet felt weird. Heavy and numb. Still trying to breathe through the panic inducing feeling of the wet gag, he looked down: his hands were in his lap in heavy duty handcuffs. These looked nothing like the ones Shepherd knew how to get out of. They were thick and tight, rubbing uncomfortably on his wrists. A faint hum like electricity radiated off of them. The same ones were on his now bare feet. He shifted as he registered the uncomfortable hard seat under him, and the tight seat belts strapping him against the wall. He thrashed and tried to use his super speed to snap or overheat the restraints. But nearly heaved as he realized his sluggish limbs could barely move.

"Ano, we're halfway there. Mission partially sucessful," the new voice coming from up front was familiar. The man who'd claimed to be his grandfather. Tommy peered through the little window, gutted to see this was a dark haired man in his prime, not even old enough to be his grandfather. He had a scar over his lip and grinned back at Tommy as he spoke to someone on the phone. "Unfortunately we only nabbed Pietro Junior and not the important one."

The callousness of the truth made Tommy hunch in on himself. It felt like a punch in the gut. He didnt even matter to the goons who'd been stalking him for months…

"Pietro Junior is still useful" the woman guarding Tommy said towards the two men up front. "He can be re-educated. And omce he's locked down he'll be excellent leverage to talk Billy around. " She was silverhaired, with a nasty grin. "I don't think Junior will be any trouble. Not if he wants that gag off any time soon."

He blushed and looked away from them as they laughed and mimiced his flailing and panicked gasps, He turned and stared towards the locked backdoors. Every deep desperate breath he took to convince himself he wasn't drowning was something funny to them…

He worked his tongue around the gag, trying to keep it from slipping any deeper into his mouth. If they'd just ducktaped his mouth shut it wouldn't be this bad. But the cloth they'd used instead was soaked with saliva and sweat. It made every breath through it feel damp and heavy, the faint chemical odor of it only further convinced his mind that he was still in danger of drowning, as it clamored with a resurgence of the sensations Shepherd had felt for the panicked few minutes he'd spent dying in that pool. Now Tommy struggled and choked as the still-too-vivid feeling of burning pool water in his lungs took over his thoughts. He swore he could even smell the clorine.

They were halfway to whereever they were going. How long would that be? These people wanted Billy captured too. Would they really keep Tommy like this unless he got Billy here?

He'd never let them have Billy.

Was he going to die like this?

Tommy felt his breaths getting shallower. Someone had to know he was here didn't they? Someone would look for him.

He should have called them. He shouldn't have ditched his own birthday party. What if they just thought he'd run away and gave up on him?

What if no one came for him?

"Oi!" The woman leaned across the seats and smacked his ribs with the butt of her gun. He yelped and it caused the gag to slip deeper into his mouth "Calm the fuck down."

They grumbled about his further panic, more concerned by how much noise he made than whether he could breathe. Tommy stared at the deep darkness he could see in the sliver of a crack between the back doors. The dark was broken only by a single headlight flickering on the road behind them. It wasn't even a busy road. Even if he could get free and throw himself out the back there wouldn't be anybody to help...

The headlight got closer. It would pass by soon. There would be no one around soon to notice him. No one to tell his moms where he was. He'd be all alon-

Abruptly, the van lurched. Tommy heard the distorted hiss of air and then the screech of bare wheels across the asphalt.

"For fuck sakes" the driver muttered. "Hang on i'll rollout the back ups."

Tommy felt the van clank and lift as back up tires were deployed . But before they got moving, the van lurched and creaked, and Tommy felt the fresh tires spin and strain against something dragging on the back fender. Then there was a hiss and clunk and the smell of smoke as something jammed the wheels themselves. The driver slammed his foot on the gas in vain as the van stayed at a dead stop.
The two goons guarding him had gotten to their feet now, guns pointed at the back doors, which were being attacked, Tommy realized.

His eyes widened as he watched rust begin to rapidly eat away at the back doors until they crumbled to dust. A dark figure was walking towards the van, removing a motorbike helmet to reveal long black hair that whipped too and fro, ink-dark tendrils in the wind. His captors shot at her, and their bullets exploded into dust in midair as she strode closer and closer. Green magic began to glow in both her hands.

Rio stepped into the van with murder in her eyes. Her ankle length green dress and deep black wrap appeared undisturbed by the rain of bullets. She pinned Tommy's male guard to the wall with two gleaming knives stabbed through his shoulders. While she did, the woman bodyguard fired the gun towards her back at close range. Tommy watched the first bullet stop in midair, awash in bright green magic. Instead of crumbling to dust it hovered harmless in the air. The woman fired again, with the same result. He could see Rio chuckling as she took her time ensuring the knives dug all the way through the other guard's shoulders, until they stabbed into the van's metal sides, her other hand effortlessly levitating the bullets in a harmless circle.

"Don't move" Rio ordered the man. She then whipped around, grabbing the woman's shaking handgun by its barrel. One by one the glowing green bullets slid back into the weapon. Rio's eyes flashed green and Tommy stared as plants sprouted from the end of the gun and twined around the weapon, until its barrel was split and warped back on itself, and the plants clinging tendrils were tangled around the woman's hands. When Rio flicked her gaze upwards the plants followed her silent command. Thick stalks rushed towards the ceiling, dragging the woman's arms over her head as the greenery shattered the casing around the overhead light and twined itself into metal and wires, suspending his second guard helplessly.

Rio ignored the driver and the man in shotgun who were scrambling to seal the door to the front. All her attention was for Tommy. One warm hand cupped his face while the other eased the gag out of his mouth. He coughed and gasped a few deep, free breaths, staring as more tendrils of greenery wove their way into his metal restraints, sprouting roots and leaves and flowers, growing until the heavy-duty handcuffs groaned and shivered and finally snapped apart; Rio's magic freed his feet with the same inhuman amount of force.

Green glowing fingertips touched his wrists, healing bruises as circulation rushed back into his fingers. He grimaced from the resulting pins and needles.

"You're good, kiddo?" Rio checked as she crouched down to heal the same bruises on his ankles.

He nodded, still gasping full lungfuls of air.

Rio frowned. Over his shirt, she traced a few green runes. Immediately the lingering panic and recollection of drowning ebbed away. He felt his breathing even out.

"I'm. I'm sorry," he sputtered.

She furrowed her brows. "You don't need to be. But wait just a minute, okay?"

She waited for him to nod and then he watched her turn away, looking up front at the barred door where his final two captors sounded like they were trying to escape the cab.

Rio cracked her neck and her knuckles and flicked her eyes between his captors, smirking.

"Eenie… Meenie…Miney…"

This ticked the driver off. "Lady," he hollared from up front. "What the fuck do you think you're-"
Rio ripped open the barred door to the front, demolished the electric forcefield they'd set up behind it. She grabbed the driver by his neck and blew a puff of green magic right into his face.

As she released his neck, he coughed and then choked. His face turned purple as spores of mushrooms exploded from his throat and nose and eyes.

"Mo."

Rio grinned as she dropped the corpse into the drivers seat.

"Catch a tiger by the… toe"

A thorn shot up through the floor beneath the woman suspended by her arms. She screamed as it sunk roots through her foot that began to wind up her whole leg, and then all the way up her torso. The roots turned blood red, and sprouted bright pink flowers as the woman turned limp and gray.
Rio stood between the front and back of the van, watching until the body swinging in the air was completely drained.

"Out goes Y-O-U!"

She reached back and snapping the neck of the cowering man in the passenger seat.

Three of the four captors now dead, Rio returned to Tommy's side, giving him a reassuring squeeze on his shoulder. Then she turned to the final, living guard, who was whimpering as he sat, motionless, pinned in place by her knives. Tommy watched the man wet himself as Rio rested her high heel on the bench beside him and loomed over him, looking at him like he was a particularly disgusting bug.

Finally, she yanked both knives free of the guard's shoulders. "Do you know how many eons I wasn't allowed to kill people? It was the most frustrating part of the job. You can't force anyone to their death, no matter how much they deserve it." She grinned ferally, balancing both knives on one fingertip. "But I'm retired now and you have no idea how much I'd like to make you my fourth ever murder."

The man whimpered as Rio swiftly flipped one of her knives, grabbed it, and held its tip to the mans jugular. "But you have a chance to bargain with me. Your lucky day. I need you to send a message to whoever sent you here. Can you do that for me, pigeon?"

The grizzly guard gulped and whimpered. Rio grinned from ear to ear. "Good. It's a very simple message." She took his chin in hand and trained it towards Tommy. "He is my son. And he is not to be touched. Or talked to. Or looked at. Ever. ¿Comprendes?"

The man nodded rapidly, and Rio released his chin. "In case you don't remember the message... I'll make sure the point gets across." She shoved her thumbs into the wounds on his shoulders. He screamed as she healed the wounds, but left scars shaped like her thumbprints behind. "Don't come back. Or my wife will be the one dealing with you next time. I'll enjoy that, but you really, really won't." She then released the whimpering man, pulled his boots off, and returned to Tommy. One second she was pulling him to his feet, the next he found himself folded into a tight hug. "Mijo, it's okay. You're okay."

He had braced himself for anger, disappointment. Not this… Relief. Lo-affection. Shepherd had never had anyone do anything like this for him. Apologies welling up in his throat.

But Rio spoke before he could get the words out. "I'm sorry it took so long to get to you."

He hiccuped. Sobbed, arms folded tighter around him.

"It's gonna be okay," Rio told him. She coaxed him to sit once more and he watched her slip the stolen boots onto his cold bare feet. Then was guiding him towards the exit of the van.

"I'm sorry," he croaked as he fought to reign in the sobs.

"You don't need to apologize," she told him.

His feet were like pins and needles, and his movements still heavy and sluggish from whatever drug they'd given him to keep him from going super speed. When he had trouble clambering down onto the road, Rio slipped an arm around him and lifted him to the ground herself. "She had a feeling something was wrong," Rio explained. She sounded almost sheepish. "I just didn't want to risk her being here if it turned out these guys had any unexpected surprises. "

"I-I wouldn't want her to get hurt helping me." Tommy said with a shrug of one shoulder."She's having your real kid in a few months."
Rio made a properly affronted sound. She stopped in the road, turned and held his arms as she looked at him, intense and serious. "You are our real kid," she insisted. "Don't you dare think you're anything less. We chose you. Whether you want to call us your parents or not. And you don't have to." She studied him for a a few seconds. "Although maybe I should make you call us that if it will convince you it's true."

Tommy crossed his arms, folding in on himself. "I didn't mean to cause trouble."

She shook her head. "You're never trouble," she told him. "Come on, let's get out of here."

He nodded, shuffling along with her towards her sleek, black motorbike that was parked behind the massive tree roots she'd summoned. They had shredded up the asphalt to attack the van. Staring at the effort she'd taken, it hit Tommy fully: She'd left Billy's party to come for him. Just for him.

Go on, tell her, Shepherd urged him, jaded impulsive and craving a surprise. He couldnt seem to help pushing his luck, pushed Tommy to say what he really wanted too. See what happens.

"Rio," he croaked. "I don't want to go to the party."

"You don't have to" Rio said as she got a helmet and jacket out for him.

Tommy was so floored he failed to catch the helmet she tried to hand to him. It slipped out of his fingers. She wasn't mad. He didn't have to go.

Rio levitated the helmet onto his head and pulled the jacket around his shoulders. "Where do you want to go instead?" she asked.

Tommy shoved his fists in his pockets and shrugged. "I don't know."

He had thought shed make him go back. instead he got to choose.

He hadn't thought of anything but not going to the party.

"Not a single place you might want to be? If you could you could go absolutely anywhere."

A room with stars glued on the ceiling and soft moonlight in the window, snatches of a mostly forgotten lullaby crooned over him. He imagined it had been sung while she combed his hair and kissed his forehead. But he couldn't remember those things.

It was demolished and trashed now anyway. Tommy scowled. "Nowhere that still belongs to me," he muttered.

Rio hummed. She looked thoughtfully down at the motorbike for a few seconds and then nodded once. She got on and patted the seat behind her. "I know a place."

"Where?"

"Somewhere for you. Thought we'd take you and Billy together. But seems like it might help. And it's more for you than Billy anyway."

He furrowed his brows at the cryptic phrasing. But then shrugged. Anything she wantes to do would be better than what had just happened to him.

He adjusted the helmet and jacket and climbed onto the bike behind Rio. As the motorbike roared to life, whipping over to the southbound highway, back towards Eastview, Tommy rested his helmet against her shoulder. He stared into the rain. Now that he was sufficiently protected from it, the sharp pitter-patter against his shoulders and helmet were almost soothing.

He is my son. And he is not to be touched.

He fought back the tears that were threatening to spill forth. It was just Shepherd's fault. Shepherd had never had anyone step in and save him before. Shepherd was the one making him feel so overwhelmed and so ashamed that he was so hung up on parents who'd left him behind that he wouldn't accept the ones who'd taken him in.

As they picked up speed, Rio reached down and tugged his arms more securely around her waist, giving a gentle squeeze as if telling him to hold on tighter.

It was only Shepherd making him feel this way, Tommy convinced himself as a few tears escaped and dripped onto the inside of the helmet.

Rio roared down the interstate, breaking the speed limit and several other rules along the way. When they reached Westview, she peeled off the road entirely. Rio, for all she held the rules of the natural world in highest regard didn't seem to have the same reverence for traffic laws. She took the kind of efficient route that he would have run on foot: through woods and then through several backyards.

It was about then, as they slowed enough for him to pick out details through the rainy darkness, that Tommy straightened up behind her and wiped the rain off his visor, peering into the dark and confirming that they were in fact approaching the sleepy neighborhood and culdesac that he would give anything to have back, even just as memories.

Tommy watched her flip off Agnes' abandoned house on the end of the culdesac, which a plethora of ivy and fungi were making steady progress devouring.

And then the bike was rumbling to a stop at the end of another driveway. Tommy kept his eyes averted. "Not here," he rasped. "I don't want to see it like this."

"Like it was this summer?" Rio asked. And at his nod she turned and rubbed his back. "It's better now. But you'd be a better judge of than me. See what we did, and if you still want to leave, I'll take you anywhere else you want."

Tommy gulped and looked over. Prepared for the graffiti and the vitriolic signs and the trash tossed on the lawn.

But it wasn't anything like that. He stared for a long minute and stood, casting the helmet aside. His feet drifted away from the bike and he was vaguely aware of Rio walking by his side as they approached the place his home once stood.

A lump swelled in his throat as he looked at the faintly purple chalk that glittered as it encircled the property's edges. Rio paced the circle three times until it lit up purple. She stopped in front of Tommy and extends a hand.

He'd been around witches for months now. He knew a protective circle when he saw one. This one was to keep away intruders.

Rio guided him into the circle, up the walk to the ruined house. The lawn had been dry and barren when he came back last summer, covered in trash. Now even with winter setting in, it was in bloom: azaleas, lilies, and roses lined either side of the front walk and bloomed even taller and brighter all around the foundation, as if protecting even the view of it from passerby. When he reached the front step it looked swept and clean. And when he peered into the foundation at the concrete all the graffiti has been scoured from the basement walls. Broken pipes had been removed and in the spaces they'd been, soft white lanterns now stood mounted on the walls, illuminating the whole space.

He realized the rain was still falling into the foundation, coming down steadily, but he could no longer feel it. Tommy looked around and found Rio standing beside him. One of her hands held up green magic, deflecting rain away from them both. She smiled at him and gestured towards their feet.

Tommy looked down: in the green light of her magic, he could see two names had been carved onto the front stoop, along with birthdates and birth places. His father has a death date, but his mother…

"She's… is she not dead?!" Tommy rasped.

Rio sighed and wrapped her arm around him. "She's gone, but not dead" she told him. "I can't be more certain than that. I dealt with dead people. I knew the names of every soul that ever called to me. Her's did a few times, but never completed the journey…" she cleared her throat. "But souls don't disappear like that without reason. I can't say if she's still Wanda in whatever form she's become." She shifted from foot to foot beside him. "Probably not what you want to hear."

He bit his lip against the tears that wanted to spill. It was really nice that she didn't bullshit him. From months unable to ask Billy and months wracking his brain to bring more memories forth, he would rather know anything than keep silently wondering. Even so, he hesitated on the next question that he wanted to ask. He wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer.

He asked anyway. "Do you think she'd come back for us?"

Rio was quite still beside him, when he looked at her face there was a thoughtful furrow to her brow. "I hope if she can, she does," She said finally. "Because you deserve someone who shows up for you…"

His chest ached. She'd shown up for him. Agatha had shown up for him. Every time he'd needed something ever since getting shoved into Shepherd's body, they'd been there to help him.

He looked over at Rio and saw she had stuck her tongue against her cheek and was pondering the front stoop as if it were a complex puzzle. "What?" he rasped.

"I'm just not… sure how that would go if your mom comes back." Rio hummed. "We will make a plan for if that happens. But no matter what, you'll still be ours too. Always."

Tommy swallowed the sob before it could escape. He focused on the two names carved on the front step. "There should be a… something other than the names, right?"

"An epitaph," Rio told him. "We spitballed a few. But ultimately, Agatha figured that should be up to you."

Tommy bit down on his lip. He stared at Vision and Wanda's names and wished he remembered enough to know what to say.

Vivid color unfurled in Rio's hand as she passed him a bouquet: a white rose nestled in amongst small yellow and red flowers.

"You can talk to them, you know," Rio encouraged him. "It won't be stupid."

He crossed his arms.

"Okay." Rio bent and set the bouquet down on the stoop, under the two names. She thought for a few moments. Then she cleared her throat and spoke softly. "You both made a really great kid," she said, tracing the names with her fingers. "He's here. He's not sure what words he needs. I'm not the best with them either." She stood, with a flick of her wrist the rain dispersing spell she'd been holding settled into a bright green circle around Tommy. Rio shoved her hands in her pockets as she rocked on the balls of her feet. "If you don't want to talk around me that's fine. I'll wait by the bike… let you three spend some time together."

"You could stay," Tommy blurted out. "If you wanted."

Rios looked stunned and then her expression melted into soft smile. Like the one Agatha gave Billy when he called her Mama. Rio looked at him like he was just as loved.

Tommy sobbed. And Rio looped her arm around him again and let him lean against her.

"You don't mind that I miss them?" he rasped.

"Not a bit," Rio told him. "You wanna tell me about them?"

Billy never wanted to talk about them. Billy wanted nothing to do with remembering anything about…

"I don't… I don't really remember them."

As the confession spilled out, Rio turned him towards her and wrapped both arms around him. Tommy crushed her close, and as she hugged him, the numb feeling that had driven its way into his chest eased.

"I could tell you a few things," she offered.

"You can?" he asked.

"Sure. Vision was really excited to meet me, instead of disappear. I didn't get too many people excited to see me. So I let him stay a while." She rubbed his back as her words echoed faintly into the cavernous concrete foundation. "He was hoping to find the both of you. We talked a long time while we looked… but of course, you both couldn't reach me. And he hoped that meant you were still alive. I can tell you, I might not have been pleased about the body snatching, but… your dad would be happy." She pulled back and drew a hankerchief, offering it to him.

"What else did he say about me?"

Rio told him stories until the rain had flooded the whole foundation with several inches of water. She painted pictures in his mind that finally shook memories loose from the time and trauma that had obscured them. He remembered his father's face. Remembered watching Mom and Dad dance in the living room. Remembered learning to play catch and ride a bike in those painfully short days under the hex's faint red shimmer in the sky. He remembered it was his idea to turn from 5 to 10 so they could keep the dog and could remember the Sokovian lullaby that had, for a few halcyon days soothed him to sleep. When Rio ran out of stories and he ran out of questions, she was fine with silence, letting him linger on the memories.

Eventually the rain turned stormier, the chill in the air grew heavier as a strong november wind swept in. It made his feet numb even in the bootd and he shifted from foot to foot and looked at Rio. She was no immortal entity anymore. He saw how the wind made her slight form shiver under her jacket. He wondered how long she'd let them stay out here and knew it would be as long as he needed. She still had an immortal's patience. Tommy sniffed and wiped his tears on his sleeve.

"Ri… Mami," he said, testing it out for the first time. "I think I want to go home now."

She ducked her head. He saw the glimmer of a tear as she dashed it off her cheek. "Sure kiddo," she said. "Party's probably over by now." With her hand on his back, she ushered him away from the grave of his first life and back to the bike.

She paused as she was reving up the engine, taking a long look at the lonely foundation of his old home. "I come out here every Tuesday to keep your place tidy and tear more of Agnes' house down," she said. "You can come if you want."

"School."

"Skip it," she told him. "You'll have your whole life to learn school."

A smile tugged at his lips as he picked up the helmet. "Thanks for doing this." He cleared his throat. "I know Billy doesn't care about it."

"We did it because you do," Rio paused putting on her helmet and studied him. "The party wound up being all for Billy, didn't it," she realized. And tisked. "He even picked the cake."

Tommy looked away and shrugged. "It's not your fault. I just agreed with what he said. Everything he wanted sounded good… I don't even know if I have a favorite cake anyways."

"Huh." Rio shook her head. "Okay we're gonna fix that. Pronto." She studied him. "Why didn't you say anything?"

Tommy sighed. "I mean… I guess I felt like… he's more important." He sniffed. "I'm just the extra."

"Now that. Is not true." Rio said.

"He's Agatha's favorite."

Rio sighed.

"You know I'm right."

"It isn't true the way you mean," she said. "Agatha and the abomination are… special to eachother," she conceded and she squeezed his arm and met his eyes, gravely serious. "But you are no less loved than him." Then she grinned. "Besides, I still have an opening for favorite twin. If you're interested in applying."

Tommy raised a bemused eyebrow at her. "You don't think I'm an abomination?"

Rio laughed. "Nope. But don't tell Billy that. He needs a healthy fear of body hopping. Speaking of…" She put on her helmet, "Ready to go? I'm afraid if we stay out much longer your Mama and brother will decide to hunt us down."

Tommy nodded. He was tired and hungry and he realized he wanted nothing more in that moment than the cozy living room with purple and green candle flames glowing on the mantle and the ever present smell of the flowers hanging in the windows. He got on the bike behind Rio, and put the helmet on pausing to look at the grave.

"I'll come back soon," he whispered. "I'll... tell you about Billy and our moms next time." Then he wrapped his arms tight around Rio, feeling warm and safe as they drove the quiet streets back towards home.

And for the first time since the coven had plucked him, hungry and confused off the streets of Miami, he felt like he belonged somewhere.