some explanations are given! not many, though
Here’s a not-so-fun fact! Being left alone with your thoughts, when you have so very many things you are trying so very hard not to think about because you will have a breakdown about it, is so verynot cool.
Tommy’s doing his best to ignore it.
He just needs to get to Billy. If he gets to Billy, he’ll be fine. If he can just find Billy, he’ll be okay! If he can just see his brother again-
If he can just see his brother again, then it will stop the nauseating feeling of wrongness and confusion swirling in his chest. It has to.
He just needs to find Billy. Everything else can wait until he finds his brother. Everything.
He drums his fingers on the console of Kate’s car, trying to distract himself with the rhythmic tapping. Faster, and faster, and-
The door to the driver’s side opens, and Kate slides in, shoving a bag in his face. “Alright,” she says, arms crossed, “care to explain what the heck that was in there?”
“Lying,” he replies with a shrug, which is objectively the truth. She laughs, then quickly composes herself.
“And, uh. Why exactly did you need my help lying to that poor woman?”
“It’s a long story,” he huffs, slumping in the seat. “You wouldn’t believe me.”
“Try me,” she challenges, twisting to look at him.
He fiddles with the seatbelt. “I’m telling you, you aren’t gonna believe me.”
“I’m friends with a superhero,” she says dryly. “I’ll believe pretty much anything.”
“MymomcreatedmewithmagicandthenIdiedandmybrotherbroughtmebackfromthedead!” The words spill out in a rush, and he blinks. “Oh. I guess it’s not actually that long a story.”
Kate turns back to the front, buckling her seatbelt and adjusting the rearview mirror. “Huh.”
“Huh?” he repeats, tangling his fingers through the plastic handles of the store bag. “Well?”
Kate is quiet for a moment, putting the car in reverse and pulling out. “You’re right. I don’t believe you.”
“Told you so,” he groans, pulling his knees up to his chest and pressing his face against them. “Alright, pull over. I can just get out here.”
“But,” Kate continues, ignoring his theatrics, “I also don’t not believe you.”
A beat. “That doesn’t make any sense,” he grumbles accusingly, and she shrugs out of the corner of his eye.
“Yeah, maybe so. It’s the truth, though.”
He worries his lip between his teeth, then sighs, uncurling his legs. “So you’re not taking me to the police?”
“Do you want me to?”
He glares at her, and she raises an eyebrow. “No,” he says after a moment. “Clearly I don’t.”
“Cool.” She looks back at the road, flipping the radio on. “Then we’re in agreement, I guess. Where d’you need to go?”
He stares at her, then flicks through the bag, pulling out the jerky. “Which avenger did you know?”
“I didn’t say it was an avenger.”
“It’s always an avenger.”
She glances at him. “Hawkeye.”
“Oh,” he says. “The archery one, right?”
“Yep.”
He nods. “That’s nice. My mom’s an avenger. And my dad, but he isn’t real. Sorta.”
“Not gonna ask about that,” Kate decides.
“You can, if you want,” he offers, opening the jerky, but she just continues.
“So, who’s your mom?”
He takes a bite, considering. Should he trust her with that? He remembers... a lot of people being very mad at his mother. “You might not be happy about it.”
She waits, and he squirms and doesn’t really think he should tell her but he hates silence and Billy always used to fill the silence in his mind before but Billy is not here, and his thoughts are so alone without Billy’s to join them, and he feels weird and empty and sometimes in the silence he doesn’t feel quite like Tommy Maximoff anymore and-
“Wanda Maximoff!” he blurts out, immediately regretting it but it’s too late because he already said it, so. “My mom’s Wanda Maximoff.”
Kate flicks on the turn signal, looking over her shoulder as she seems to process that. “...huh. Didn’t she have like, magic?”
“She’s a witch,” he says, shoving more jerky into his mouth. “So. Uh.”
“Right.” Kate taps her nails on the steering wheel. “Didn’t she cause some like, huge problem in New Jersey?”
“Westview,” he mumbles. “Um, yeah. She... mind-controlled an entire town so she could have a life with my dead dad.”
A long pause. “Oh,” Kate says.
“Oh,” he agrees.
“Can we- can we circle back around to the “back from the dead” thing?” she asks awkwardly.
He opens the bag of Cheetos, offering her some to distract himself from the thoughts threatening to drag him down, down, down. “I mean, there isn’t much to explain. My mom created me with magic, but then she had to shut down her spell ’cause she was torturing the entire town by taking away their free will. My brother- he can read minds -he could hear ’em screaming in their heads, so it’s probably a good thing she stopped. But, uh, stopping the spell meant that I died. So I died.” He shrugs, picking at one of the scars on his unfamiliar wrist, ignoring the lump in his throat. “Y’know how it is.”
“I, um.” Kate exhales a long breath, shaking her bangs out of her face. “No, I don’t quite think I do know how it is.”
He takes another handful of Cheetos, crossing his legs beneath him, a familiar movement and he’s almost back at home, in the Hex, in Westview perched on the couch beside his brother watching reruns of old cartoons on Ms. Agnes’s static-y TV. “Yeah, that’s... fair.”
“And- um.” She glances at him with a heavy look. “And your... brother?”
Billy.
Billy, Billy, Billy-
His brother. His brother.
He needs his brother. He needs-
His stomach churns, and he taps her arm rapidly. “Pull over.”
“What?”
“Pull over!” he insists, chest tightening. “Please. I need to have a panic attack.”
“What?”
“Just do it!” he snaps, and then the tears start.