Chapter Text
Billy isn’t panicking - he’s beyond panicking. The on-off-on-off sense of his twin is driving him insane.
Teddy has his hand locked in his, keeping him still, keeping him from flying out of here and demanding whoever is hurting his brother stop.
On-off-on-off. Flashes of panic, flashes of his name being screamed into the universe.
He needs to go. He has to help. He has to get to Tommy.
“Teen?” Agatha grabs his face and locks him in, focusing his entire attention on her. “There you are.”
“He’s been like this since you left,” Teddy says quietly.
He can’t look at his boyfriend, eyes locked on Agatha. His magic feels like a string stretched too taunt. Pain, panic. A sense of longing.
‘Tommy, Tommy, Tommy.’
“I thought you were sensing the Socerers?” Agatha asked gently, softness in her eyes and voice.
“I feel Tommy, and then I don’t, and then I do again.”
“The magical shielding is breaking,” Agatha observes. “You’re too young to have run into it before.”
“I need - I need my brother.” He whispers. “Please, Agatha. I need my brother. Please let me go.”
Her brow furrows, concern crossing her face. “I am not keeping you here.”
He feels a surge of panic from somewhere deep inside him, his boyfriend reaches for his hand.
But Billy is already gone.
*~*
The building is exploding in slow motion.
Or Billy is holding it back, he sees a helicopter above him and he’s aware of - something else, something watching him as he floats down.
The roof tears itself apart, sucking inward and then exploding outward.
Billy holds its form briefly as he drops through, led unerringly to a room that looks like a hospital room - except it feels so hostile. So wrong.
Tommy is on the bed, the walls crumbling outward, the boy tapping his finger against the sheets. The explosion is centered there - spreading, faster and faster. Blowing through walls and fences. There will be nothing left.
His hair has gone completely white - shorter than he remembered it being the last time. “Tommy.” He waves his hand, and the wires and tubes pull out of his brother, the floor is crumbling beneath them, but Billy is floating and Tommy is not yet falling.
His brother sits up, and for the first time in this lifetime, they are face to face.
“Billy.” Tommy’s voice is oddly calm - or maybe he’s just sedated.
“Tommy.” He reaches out his hand, and the explosions around them speed up - he can only just pull magic around them to protect them from it.
Someone else brushes their magic against him, and then the entire facility is blasted out - they’re standing in a field, stones obliterated by the kinetic explosion his brother released from his movement, Billy wraps his arms around Tommy, and Tommy, trembling, wraps his arms around him as well.
“Stop!” Someone shouts. But Billy has already made up his mind about where he is taking his brother.
Home and safe. He wants to be home and safe.
“Hold it! You’re on government property! You are under arrest!”
“Uncle.” Tommy breathes against his shoulder.
Billy nods and finds the foreign bubble of magic - and his uncle. He accepts them all into his ward. “Home, now. Take me home, now.” He commands his magic.
Something loud whirls to life, the whine making Tommy wince - but they’re back in his living room, Uncle Pietro falling on his butt with a string of curses, clutching the child in his arms, clutching two other children closer.
He’s only aware of Tommy in his arms, the breath against his bones, and the steady beat of his brother’s heartbeat.
“Billy!” It sounds like too many people at once.
And darkness.
*~*
Agatha feels her heart stop when Billy falls.
Really, it was already stuttering to a stop when Billy appeared with his arms tangled around what is presumably his brother - they’re both covered in blood and dust. She might need Rio to give her mouth to mouth.
Rebecca screams - honestly, half the room screams. It’s not really expected.
Well, she’s honestly not sure what is expected at this point, with this boy.
Certainly not a tangle of other limbs that resolves itself into a man and children - Pietro, huh. Still alive? Fascinating.
These Maximoffs are hard to kill. Harder than she realized.
Maybe she should check on Ralph, has she made him an accessory to the Maximoff hive mind by linking him to Wanda?
“Billy!” Teddy makes it there first, which isn’t fair as he is by far one of the least magical people in the room. But there he is, tall dark and alien princy, trying to pull apart the tangle of limbs that is presumably Billy and Tommy - a worthless attempt, she wants to tell him, even as she hits her knees next to the boys.
Tommy jerks away from her like she might - well, in his memory, she might. She pulls her hands back for half a beat, and then can’t help the way they find Billy’s face even as his twin growls at her.
“I always knew you were more likely to bite.” She says. “It’s good to see you, kid.”
“Agnes?” Tommy slurs, pupils blown too wide and wild for anything to really penatrate.
“Agatha, actually. You’ll catch up. Which one of you is bleeding?” Jen is there with a wash of pink magic and an arm full of first aid supplies.
Rebecca is on the other side of Teddy, nervously hovering. Jeff looks like he’s half a beat from going downstairs and making a potroast.
A laugh bubbles up within her, and with it tears that surge into place in a way she wasn’t expecting. “He’s breathing, he’s alive.” She tells Jen. “They’re both alive.”
“I will send you outside, Agatha.” Jen informs her flatly.
Tommy doesn’t want to be untangled from Billy, and even unconscious Billy isn’t helping with untangling himself from his twin.
They’re alive. They’re both alive. These stupid, infuriating twins.
She loves them so much.
*~*
“I don’t want to hear it.” Wong said quietly.
Strange shrugged, dropping the hand he had lifted to point at the TV. The boy ripping the base apart with his bare hands certainly wasn’t a good look.
A U.N. sanctioned site no less.
Was this the rogue magic user that had hidden New Jersey?
At least he can take comfort in the fact that the boy with his blue magic was certainly not Wanda. But he definitely had the look of a threat.
America was practically vibrating, watching the boy as he dropped out of sight into the base. “What do you think he was after?”
“Power? Resources? Tired of being tracked for being powerful? Who can tell with those types. Not you, at least.” Stephan offered, glancing at the girl.
“Power? With that display? He ripped the building apart on the subatomic level in slow motion. There’s nothing more.” Wong looked irritated. “She said he would destroy us if we challenged him, I wonder what the CIA did to challenge him.”
“Shall we go back and convene with witches?” Stange joked, glancing at his hardwon friend. “Or simply not knock this time?”
“Urgh.”
*~*
He turns off the TV, considering the display.
Victor knew a substantial amount of information on the magical forces to come - he had hoped that Valentina would be able to secure the Demiurge-to-come. But it was clear he had…overestimated her capacity.
He lifted his glass from the table, considering the weight the boy might have on his plans. Scrying for his mother already, he assumed the boy would likely become a thorn in his side. But this was one of the outcomes he had foreseen - that t he Demiurge would not be so easily captured, would not be so easily trapped by the danging taunt of his brother. He had overcome the trap.
There had been other Demiurges, and there would be still more in the future. But this one was here now.
And had his heir, one that he had put a substantial amount of work into. But Kristoff could serve as an observer to the boy and his brother, could become something of an in with them.
After all, it would be a simple matter to turn those boys against the Socerer who were likely to be a thorn in his side - if only they were to come upon the knowledge of what had been done to their mother.
All was not lost.
Simply…the board had changed. Something new had come about.
The game was still his to win.
“Victor?” Wanda’s voice was soft, her accent growing stronger with every day she spent in his presence.
“Here, darling.” He turned.
She was clutching the toddler again in her arms - it had been nothing at all to find someone with enough blood tie to work for the spell, and yet he had chosen the analog means to make her. He would have preferred to name her Cynthia, after all. But let Wanda have what she wished.
It kept her from struggling.
“Of course you are, you never leave.” Her hand brushed his shoulder, magic to magic. If any woman could match him magic for magic, it was her.
But he had still won.
And he would continue to win.
The Demiurge had not been Valentina’s only task, after all.