Work Text:
In the guest room of the March household, Tom sat on the edge of the mattress, his fingers dancing over the guts of a disassembled alarm clock. Small brass gears lay scattered across a white towel, looking like the inner workings of a fallen star. He didn't need the manual. He didn't need a guide. He just felt the logic of the machine, the way the tension in the spring dictated the movement of the hands. Soko, who Tom is convinced it's the world's most adorable puppy, let out a sharp, high-pitched yip. The dog nudged Tom's knee with a wet nose, his tail whipping back and forth with enough force to shake the bedside table.
"Not now, Soko," Tom whispered. His voice sounded strange to him, a ghost of a Sokovian lilt slipping through the polished American veneer he had spent years perfecting. "I almost have it."
He slid a tiny pin into place. The clock ticked once, then twice, then settled into a steady, rhythmic heartbeat. Tom exhaled, a long breath that seemed to carry a piece of his tension away. He leaned back, staring at the ceiling. The house was too quiet. With Colt and Jody gone for the day, the silence felt heavy, like a physical weight pressing against his chest. He knew the March family was kind. They had opened their doors to him when Gail had finally been hauled off to a cell, but the kindness felt like a loan he couldn't repay. He was a guest, a charity case, a broken actor with a history of scandals and secrets. He wondered if they were talking about him downstairs. Did they whisper about the way he flinched when a door slammed? Did they wonder why he spent hours in silence, taking things apart just to see if he could put them back together? Did they regret allowing Colt to bring him here?
A soft knock sounded at the door. Tom froze, his shoulders hiking toward his ears.
"Pietro? You in there, buddy?"
It was Ryland. The voice was warm, lacking the sharp edges Tom had grown used to under Gail's tutelage. Tom cleared his throat, smoothing his expression into something neutral.
"I am here," Tom replied, remembering to flatten the vowels. "Come in."
The door creaked open. Ryland stepped inside, his glasses slipping down the bridge of his nose. He pushed them up with a quick flick of his finger, his eyes immediately landing on the disassembled clock on the bed.
"Is that a 1950s Westclox?" Ryland asked, stepping closer. "I didn't know you were into vintage horology."
Tom looked down at the gears. "I just liked the sound. It was... off. The timing was lagging by three seconds every hour."
He's just glad Ryland didn't ask where he got it from, although he is slightly surprised he recognized what it was. After all, how's he supposed to say that he had run to a different country and snagged this out of a dump?
Ryland let out a low whistle. "Three seconds? Most people wouldn't even notice that. You've got a hell of an ear for mechanics."
"It is just a hobby," Tom said, shifting his weight. "I should probably get out of the room soon, though I do not wish to be a bother."
Ryland stopped, his expression softening. He leaned against the dresser, crossing his arms.
"A bother? Pietro, you've been in this room for four hours. We were starting to think Soko had accidentally locked you in."
Tom offered a small, tentative smile. "I just thought... you all have your own lives. You do not need to entertain me because Colt asked you to."
"Entertain you?" Ryland laughed, a genuine sound that echoed in the small room. "Man, we're a family of disasters. We don't entertain; we just collide. Besides, Holland is currently arguing with Healy about the best way to brew coffee, and Claire is bored out of her mind. You're the least bothersome thing in this house."
Soko took this as a cue to jump, landing with a clumsy thud on Tom's lap and licking his chin with enthusiasm. Tom laughed, the sound light and unexpected, as he scratched the puppy behind the ears.
"Come on," Ryland said, gesturing toward the hall. "The kitchen is a war zone. We need a neutral party to mediate."
Tom hesitated, his mind flashing to a memory of Gail screaming that he was a useless puppet, a product she had manufactured from nothing. He shook the thought away and stood up, carefully gathering the clock parts. He was almost finished.
"I will come," Tom said.
As they walked down the hallway, the sounds of the house grew louder. The smell of toasted bread and strong coffee wafted through the air. In the kitchen, Holland and Healy were standing by the counter, their voices overlapping in a rhythmic cadence of disagreement.
"I am telling you, Healy, the grinder is too coarse," Holland grumbled, his brow furrowed.
"It's a French press, Holland," Healy countered. "It's supposed to be coarse. You're trying to make espresso in a carafe."
Courtland was sitting at the table, scrolling through a tablet, while Claire sat beside him, sketching in a notebook. She looked up as Tom entered, her eyes brightening.
"Hi, Pietro!" she chirped.
"Hello, Claire," Tom replied. He stayed near the door, his body instinctively seeking the periphery.
Holland looked over, his gaze sharp but not unkind. "About time you joined the living, kid. Ryland, did you drag him out of his cave?"
"He was fixing a clock," Ryland said, sliding into a chair. "Kid's a genius with a screwdriver."
Holland grunted, pouring a cup of coffee and sliding it across the table toward Tom. "Coffee. Black. I figured you're the type who doesn't like things watered down."
Tom took the mug, the heat seeping into his palms. "Thank you, Mr. March."
"Holland," the older man corrected. "We've been over this. Mr. March is for when I'm being sued or arrested. Just Holland is fine."
Tom nodded, taking a cautious sip. The coffee was bitter and strong, exactly how he liked it. He felt Claire's eyes on him, curious and wide.
"What were you drawing?" Tom asked, glancing at her notebook.
Claire turned the book around. It was a sketch of a bird, but the wings were metallic, intricately detailed with gears and pistons. "I wanted to make a mechanical bird. Like, one that could actually fly, but I don't know how to make the joints move without it looking clunky."
Tom leaned in, his interest piqued. The technical challenge called to him, pulling him out of his shell. He pointed to a specific joint in the wing.
"If you use a ball-and-socket joint here, with a tension wire running through the primary feather," Tom explained, his voice gaining a bit of confidence, "you can simulate a natural glide. But the weight is the problem. You would need a lightweight alloy, maybe something like a reinforced aluminum."
Claire's jaw dropped. "How do you know that?"
Tom blinked, realizing he had let the mask slip. He retreated slightly. "I... I read a lot. In my spare time."
"He's modesty-personified," Ryland joked. "I'm telling you, the guy is a secret engineer."
Courtland looked up from his tablet, his eyes studying Tom with a professional intensity. As a former CIA operative, Courtland saw things others missed—the way Tom's hands trembled slightly, the way he scanned the room for threats, the subtle tension in his jaw. He was feeling crowded.
"You've got a knack for the technical side of things, Pietro," Courtland said. "Ever think about doing something with it? Besides acting?"
The word 'acting' felt like a cold splash of water. Tom's grip tightened on the mug.
"I am not sure what I want," Tom said quietly. "I have spent a long time being what other people wanted me to be."
The table went silent. The air in the room shifted, the lightheartedness replaced by a heavy, empathetic understanding. These were people who had grown up in the shadow of abuse. They knew the feeling of being a shaped object, a tool for someone else's malice.
Holland set his mug down with a soft clink. "Gail is gone, kid. She's in a cell where she belongs. You don't have to play a part in this house."
"I know," Tom said, his voice barely a whisper. "It is just... hard to remember who the real person is."
"Maybe that's the point," Claire said, her voice small but steady. "Maybe you get to decide who the real person is now. Like a character you get to write yourself."
Tom looked at the teenage girl, seeing the pacemaker scar faintly visible beneath her shirt. She had been broken too, saved from a nightmare by the man sitting next to her. He felt a sudden, sharp kinship with her.
"I like that idea," Tom admitted.
The moment was broken by the sound of the back door opening. Driver walked in, his boots muddy and his face streaked with grease. He didn't say a word, but he gave a small, knowing nod to Tom, his eyes conveying a quiet solidarity. Driver didn't use words, but he understood the language of silence better than anyone. Driver walked over to the counter, grabbed a piece of toast, and pointed toward the garage with a questioning look.
"He wants to know if you want to see the new rig," Ryland translated. "He's been tweaking the suspension on the drift car, but he thinks the torque is off."
Tom felt a spark of genuine excitement. "The torque is off?"
Driver nodded enthusiastically, gesturing for Tom to follow him. As Tom walked toward the garage, he felt a hand on his shoulder. He flinched, but it was only Courtland. The man's grip was firm and grounding.
"Take your time, Pietro," Courtland said. "The house isn't going anywhere. Neither are we."
The garage was a sanctuary of oil, rubber, and steel. The drift car sat in the center, a stripped-down beast of a machine that looked like it wanted to tear through the pavement. Driver stepped aside, gesturing for Tom to take a look. Tom walked around the car, his eyes scanning the modifications. He knelt by the rear axle, his fingers tracing the line of the suspension.
"You're running a linear rate spring," Tom said, his voice slipping back into that rhythmic, Sokovian cadence. "But the damping is too stiff for the angle of the drift. It is fighting the car. You want it to slide, but the suspension is trying to grip."
Driver tilted his head, looking intrigued. He pointed to the shock absorber.
"Yes, exactly," Tom said, standing up. "If you decrease the preload and switch to a progressive spring, the car will initiate the slide more smoothly. It will not feel like it is snapping. It will flow."
Driver looked at the car, then back at Tom. A slow smile spread across his face. He reached into a toolbox and handed Tom a wrench.
For the next three hours, the two of them worked in a comfortable, wordless harmony. Tom found himself losing track of time, the anxiety that usually clung to him like a second skin beginning to peel away. He wasn't Tom Ryder, the starlet. He wasn't the victim of Gail's blackmail. He was just a man who loved the way machines worked. As they worked, Tom found himself talking, not because he had to, but because he wanted to. He spoke in fragments, vague pieces of a life he couldn't fully explain.
"In my home," Tom said, tightening a bolt, "we did not have cars like this. We had old tractors and rusted trucks. We learned to fix them because if we did not, we did not eat."
Driver paused, his eyes searching Tom's face.
"It was a hard place," Tom continued, his voice distant. "People were... angry. The world felt like it was always on the verge of breaking. I spent a lot of time hiding in workshops, tinkering with things I was not supposed to touch. Fixing things that could help make the day to day life a bit better."
Driver made a small sound in his throat, a soft hum of understanding. He reached out and patted Tom's shoulder, a simple gesture that meant more than a thousand words.
By the time they finished, the sun was beginning to dip below the horizon, casting long, orange shadows across the garage floor. The car looked the same, but the internals had been transformed.
"Let's see it," Tom said.
Driver hopped into the driver's seat and fired up the engine. The roar was deafening, a guttural scream of power that vibrated in Tom's chest. Driver backed the car out into the driveway, and down the street before doing a quick u-turn back towards the house; performing a sharp, sweeping drift that sent a cloud of white smoke billowing into the air. The car moved with a fluid grace it hadn't possessed before, sliding perfectly around the bend of the driveway.
When Driver returned, he stepped out of the car, his eyes gleaming. He gave Tom a thumbs-up and a wide, toothy grin.
"I think it is better," Tom said, feeling a warmth in his chest that had nothing to do with the engine's heat.
As they headed back inside, they found the rest of the family gathered in the living room. Holly had arrived, her expression weary from a day of reporting, but she brightened when she saw Tom.
"I heard you've been playing mechanic," Holly said, leaning against the doorframe. "Ryland says you're a wizard."
"I just know how to listen to the machine," Tom replied.
"I can respect that," Holly said. She looked at him, her eyes softening. "I know it's been a long road, Pietro. And I know this house can feel... a lot. But we're glad you're here. Really glad."
Tom looked around the room. He saw Holland and Healy arguing over a crossword puzzle. He saw Claire and Ryland debating the merits of different types of graphite pencils. He saw Courtland watching over them. For the first time in years, the phantom of Gail's voice in his head—the one telling him he was nothing, that he was owned, that he was a fraud—fell silent.
"I am glad to be here too," Tom said, and for the first time, he didn't feel like he was acting.
That evening, the family gathered for dinner. The table was crowded, filled with bowls of pasta and platters of roasted vegetables. Soko sat by Tom's feet, resting his heavy head on Tom's shoe.
"So," Ryland said, mouth half-full of garlic bread. "Now that the car is fixed and the clock is ticking, what's next on the agenda? You want to take apart the dishwasher? I think it's making a weird clicking sound."
Tom laughed, a real, hearty sound that made everyone at the table smile.
"Maybe tomorrow," Tom said. "Tonight, I think I would just like to eat."
As the meal progressed, the conversation drifted toward childhood memories. Holland told a story about a particularly disastrous camping trip that ended with a lost tent and a very angry raccoon. The brothers laughed, their voices blending into a symphony of shared history. Tom listened, feeling the steady pull of belonging. He knew he still had scars. He knew there were nights when he would wake up sweating, the feeling of Gail's hand on his arm or the memory of a spiked drink making him gasp for air. He knew there were parts of his past—the real past, the one involving a city called Sokovia and a sister who lived in his dreams—that he could never share.
But as he looked at the people surrounding him, he realized that he didn't have to be whole to experience the type of love he thought he lost with Wanda. These people found their way into his heart and they were there to stay. After dinner, as the house settled into a quiet hum, Tom returned to the guest room. He didn't feel the need to hide. He didn't feel the need to vanish into the shadows. He sat at the small desk, picking up a notebook and a pen.
He didn't write about the actor Tom Ryder. He didn't write about the puppet of Gail Meyers.
He wrote his name. Not the name given to him for the cameras, not the name used to sell movie tickets.
Pietro.
He stared at the letters for a long time, the ink drying on the page. It was a start. It was a small, fragile beginning, but it was his.
A soft scratch at the door announced Soko's arrival. The puppy pushed his way into the room, circling Tom's legs before flopping down with a heavy sigh. Tom reached down, burying his fingers in the golden fur.
"We are going to be okay, Soko," Tom whispered.
The puppy let out a contented huff and closed his eyes.
In the silence of the room, Tom felt a sense of peace he hadn't known since he first woke up in this strange, alien world. He had spent so long running, trying to escape the ghosts of his past and the chains of his present. He had thought that the only way to survive was to disappear, to blend in, to become whoever the world demanded he be. But here, in a house filled with broken people who had learned how to weld themselves back together, he found a different way. He found that the gaps in his story didn't make him a liar; they made him a mystery. He found that his talents weren't just tools for survival, but bridges to other people.
He thought of Wanda, her face a blurred memory of red and grief. He wondered if she could see him now. He wondered if she would be proud of the man he was becoming—a man who could fix a clock, a car, and perhaps, in time, himself.
He leaned back in his chair, watching the moonlight filter through the curtains. He wasn't a star. He wasn't a product. He was just Pietro, and for the first time in his life, that was more than enough.
The next morning, the house woke up with its usual chaos. The smell of burnt toast drifted upstairs, accompanied by the sound of Ryland and Holland arguing about the correct temperature for a soft-boiled egg. Tom dressed slowly, choosing a simple grey sweater and jeans. He looked at himself in the mirror. The eyes staring back at him looked tired, but the hollow emptiness that had defined his gaze for years had begun to fill with something new.
He walked downstairs to find the kitchen in a state of mild anarchy. Claire was trying to feed Soko a piece of apple, while Driver was silently attempting to organize the pantry.
"Morning, Pietro!" Ryland called out, waving a spatula. "You're just in time. We're having a crisis. The toaster has decided to go on strike."
Tom smiled, a genuine, effortless expression. He walked over to the toaster, which was emitting a thin plume of acrid smoke. He didn't hesitate. He reached for the plug, unplugged the machine, and began to unscrew the casing with a precision that made Ryland blink.
"You're really not going to let me call a repairman, are you?" Ryland asked, leaning in to watch.
"Why pay a man to do what I can do for free?" Tom replied, his voice steady and warm.
As he worked, the family gathered around him, not as spectators to a performance, but as people sharing a moment. They talked about their day, their hopes, and their petty grievances. They treated him not as a guest who needed to be handled with care, but as a part of the machinery of the house.
And as the toaster clicked back into place, emitting a perfect, golden-brown slice of bread, Tom realized that he did not mind the idea of staying here in the March household with this family.