WHERE The twins apartment WHEN Sometime in this last week, handwave~ WHAT Canon updates, relationship talk, and general mother-son catching up. Also, talking shit about an evil book. STATUS Complete! WARNINGS The evisceration of a chocolate bunny
A knot’s been forming in the pit of Wanda’s stomach for a while now and as time carried on, it grew - twisted and gnarled, sinking deeper and deeper. An unseen force was beginning to chip away at this happy bubble she’d made for herself. It was a slow, deliberate process she knew to expect but did her best not to dwell. Despite her powers, nothing could be done. This reality wasn’t one she could bend to her will.
All she could do was heed the warnings, and watch those around her - the ones she loved - come and go. Or change as the new memories began creeping in, startling them with a set of fresh reasons as to why they were all deeply traumatized and irrevocably fucked. It made her a little needy. It made her crave more moments of plain normalcy before the inevitable shoe dropped; whatever the shoe even was.
Aside from the obvious ‘everything back home is mayhem, this is why we can’t have nice things.’
Craving normalcy is why Wanda may have (irresponsibly) splurged on some holiday delicacies and surrounded herself with them on the floor of Tommy’s apartment. A giant hollow easter bunny? Check. Over a dozen peeps? Check. Jelly beans? Not her favorite but there were plenty. Ostara was around the corner - the stores were saturated in sweets to celebrate so why not.
“What do you think of Easter baskets?” Wanda inquired, back pressed against the front of the couch as she claimed a bunny for herself - and bit into its ear, the first limb to go. She wore sweatpants. This was necessary.
Tommy was an idiot, most of the time. But with superspeed, he processed most things in rapid succession and caught on to those micro-expressions that often came and went before people could blink. Which meant all those observations never went unnoticed by him, he just chose to ignore them because when it came to emotions, Tommy knew he lacked tact. He couldn't actually address them in any mature kind of way—but he was getting better.
All of that amounted to the fact that he knew shit had hit the fan, and the people in his life who were supposed to have that shit together were floundering. Wanda, his mother, for intents and purposes, was the most composed person he knew, and the sweatpants ensemble was a classic indicator that all that poise was in jeopardy.
Billy had done something similar right before he spiraled into his depressive state. The Window Months™. Tommy hated The Window Months™. He was not going to let anyone else fall prey to them.
Speeding over to sit by her on the couch, he had snatched up a package of Peeps and was already tearing into one, chewing around a mouthful before she probably even realized he was beside her. "Easter is cool. We just did Passover at the Kaplan house. Not a lot of baskets in our holiday celebrations," Tommy said, eying the hollow bunny in Wanda's hands.
"RIP to the bunny. Is it helping?"
If she hadn’t lived with a speedster before, Wanda may have been startled by the sudden here I am! pop of Tommy beside her. There was a mildly wide blink but no jolt, and she enjoyed having company while devouring an unhealthy amount of sugar (not like she could at all of this alone) that they might just die later. Or maybe she would, Tommy’s metabolism was different.
“I do not know if I can eat all of this without giving myself a stomach ache but it helps,” Wanda said in reference to the bunny. It was a massive piece of chocolate. With a face. She bit its eye off next - that part was made of a different piece of hard candy. A good thing chocolate bunnies were not sentient and had feelings as this would be an utmost brutal murder. “Oh - how are you and Toph doing? You should bring her some of this candy.”
Since, you know, there was a lot.
Tommy nodded, like he understood what a stomach ache was. He certainly didn't remember—his secondary mutation must have been having organs of steel, given his unabashed and unbiased consumption of food—but he wasn't going to flaunt that in front of his mom. Not when she was enjoying a shit ton of chocolate.
Though instead of immediately answering her question, Tommy shoved another peep in his mouth and chewed slower than he had in his entire life to buy some time. He didn't know how to answer. It wasn't bad between him and Toph, not by any means. It was just different; he wasn't used to having a girlfriend that parents asked after. That was usually reserved for Billy and Teddy, who were practically married from day one. Nerds.
"She's good. We're good. I don't know? I don't know what the answer is to that. Things aren't bad, we still yell at each other all the time, but then we also just make out after so..." Tommy said with a shrug. He wondered if there was more. Should there have been more?
Ah, fuck fuck fuck. He was opening his mouth before he could stop himself, asking, "How do you know when it's good?"
The complete and total annihilation of this hallowed bunny was put on pause to listen. Wanda started smiling. It was small at first - and then, slowly, it spread wider into a full-blown grin, and she did her best to smother down the very real threat of an awwww she was absolutely dying to let out. She couldn’t do that to Tommy, poor thing.
She had to be, like - the cool mom.
“Well,” she started and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand with the suspicion that there was some chocolate smear there. “If you miss her when she isn’t around, and if she makes you happy in a way that makes your stomach flutter when you see her or hear her voice… then I would think it’s going well. Very well.”
Wanda didn’t phrase those as questions for him to answer. Just statements to consider. Tommy was definitely smitten though, and she had a feeling that the answers would all be ‘yes’ anyway.
Tommy squinted at Wanda, listening. He immediately wanted to refute all of that. The missing her part and the butterflies part and hearing her voice—which was always super shouty and abrupt and ribbing him. But that was just the defensive side of Tommy kicking in, because feelings. When it came right down to it, Tommy could honestly say he did get all weird and fluttery (ugh) and excited to be around Toph. She would probably hit him if he said any of that outloud. Probably.
His face ran the gamut of emotions, twisting up like he drank some kombucha, then reconsidered, smiled, then immediately wiped it away. "Yessss? It's going very well then," Tommy said carefully, dubiously, as he eyed Wanda. Did she trick him into spilling his feelings? He couldn't even be mad, it was Wanda.
Shoving another Peep into his mouth, Tommy took his time getting to his own question—mostly because his mids was still circling traitorously around Toph, and he had to focus. "Is that what happens with you and your fiancé? You miss him when he's gone and his voice and shit? I mean, you're marrying the guy so I gotta make sure."
Tommy was mostly teasing. He knew, but it was only fair he got to turn the question back on his mom.
Wanda smiled around a bite of that second bunny ear. Tommy was very expressive, and she enjoyed all the twists and turns of his expression until he finally settled on a thought. She also didn’t bother hiding that smile when he scrutinized her - she liked talking about feelings! Well, not particularly hers but she liked to know how he and Billy felt about things without her magic automatically communicating it to her.
Her feelings about Stephen were a safe topic to switch to so long as they mostly avoid the catastrophe that was inevitably unraveling back home.
“Mmmm,” she started - give her a minute to chew that chunk of chocolate, then she could proceed to have a conversation like a normal person. “Yes. Even if we were not getting married I would still miss him when he’s gone.” Either when he’s engaging with covens (she passed on that, the solitary route was best for her) or working at the clinic with his impeccable bedside manners. Sometimes when he was simply in another room, still inside the Sanctum. Love was funny like that. “We did decide on a June wedding, by the way. There is a spot on the mountain we fought at that can accommodate everyone and the view is nice.”
Nothing like tying the knot in the area where you and your significant other had an extensively destructive magic fight at. It was symbolic, probably.
Tommy made a face—he was always making a face—but this one was a mixture of omg how embarrassing and omg you're so badass ridiculous I can't believe you're my mom. Of course his soul mom and soon-to-be step-sorta-howtheheckdidthiswork? parent would get married on the mountain they magically battled on. Tommy could only think of one thing to describe it.
"That's freaking hardcore, mom," Tommy said, full of awe, and flashing her a rock on hand gesture. He settled back against the couch cushion, trying to look nonchalant. "I guess I can pencil you in or whatever in June, you know weddings I guess are a big deal." He grinned, teasing, obviously. "Not really someone who goes to weddings, not a lot of people we talk to who are The Marrying Type."
He made a wild gesture with his hands, nearly flinging a marshmallow chick. Bleck, marriage. He was glad Toph was on the same page; that they had held out in the future because both of them were weird about commitment. As if Sil hadn't been the biggest commitment.
Giving her a once over as she annihilated the chocolate bunny, Tommy let the silence stretch on, which was odd because Tommy was always loud, but Wanda calmed him in unintentional ways. "And you're okay other than that? Not that I care about what you wear, but I don't usually see you rocking sweatpants."
Hardcore? Wanda? While sitting on her son’s floor gorging herself with chocolate? She was fortunate she wasn’t in mid-chew when she said that, she may have choked from letting out this snort-chuckle. “And there’s nothing wrong with not being The Marrying Type. It is - you know, not something I really thought of for myself either.”
It didn’t mean she never wanted it but life had taken a weird turn for her from when she was young. Her history wasn’t news. If she couldn’t have what she wanted back in her own world then she’d take it here. Non-violently, of course - this was growth. “But I am okay, mostly. The sweatpants help with candy bloating. Stephen received one of those memory updates from home, though.”
Which reminded her - she could ask Tommy about it, right? Their worlds weren’t exact but maybe there were similarities that could offer insight. Or help them predict more of what was to come. Wanda straightened upright a little more so her posture looked less… lazy. “Did you all have some kind of situation where the multiverse kind of… broke? And other worlds started coming through? It almost sounds like I am describing Vallo but this situation is a lot more dangerous.”
And she may have lended a hand in breaking it too, so.
Tommy made a yikes face at the mention of memory updates. The twins had been blissfully saved from getting downloaded with a bunch of events that happened to them from home, but he knew it was never pleasant. He would probably go absolutely bonkers if stuff had continued on without him—he already experienced some amnesia FOMO before, he did not want it again.
He stared down Wanda, reaching out to break off a piece of the chocolate bunny without ever breaking eye contact. He chewed on it thoughtfully, assuming multiverse + memory update + Wanda asking = something got super fucked. Broken multiverse sounded messy.
It reminded him of—oh no. Was he about to spill the beans about Wanda's no more mutants sitch? Billy would be so much better about this conversation than Tommy, but Wanda got the tactless son instead.
"Uh, kind of. We dealt with more time-travel shiii-stuff happening to us," Tommy said, looking away, and slouching down when Wanda sat up. "You guys have a Kang? I hope the answer is no because he's a dick, but he was Billy's friend and the whole reason we found each other but I'm not giving him any more credit than that. But he was trying to mess with time, and everything got weird. No extra me's but we saved people who were supposed to die, and killed others by accident and just urghhhh."
Tommy flailed. "Things broke, but not like many worlds. Just one world. Billy would know more about that multiverse."
Kang. He Who Remains. Mobius gave her the rundown about him, and she’s visited the Citadel - she’s aware. Slowly, the pieces were all falling into place and painting a rather messy picture. His demise is what caused the timelines to split, and between Wanda’s messing with fabric of reality and Stephen’s spell that accidentally brought people from two different universes into theirs? Hot mess. Hot. Fucking. Mess.
Wanda bit into the rabbit’s face aggressively.
“There is a version of Kang that was killed by Loki’s variant,” she swallowed thickly and, yes, her teeth were stained in chocolate and she was doing nothing to fix that. “I didn’t know a version of him was friends with Billy?” Nope, no, she did not like that. What she’s heard of Kang was enough to make her not approve of that.
But that made what she last remembered a lot more worrisome. “After Westview, I…” Wanda chewed on her bottom lip. “Isolated myself with the Darkhold. It’s never been here, I would feel it if it was. It is poison. It holds spells and secrets, and information I need to know about myself. While I studied it I heard you, and Billy. You two were screaming for me.”
Everything after that went dark. There was nothing else she remembered - she didn’t know if it was a trap, or if it was them calling to her from another timeline. But she knew she wouldn’t ignore it, and that she would do everything in her power to get to them.
"Yeah, our Kang, our version of Kang, was a teenager and founded our team. He came through the timestream to, like, stop his older evil self from killing all the Avengers. But you can't, like, make evilness disappear. It always comes out in the end. He still did some shitty stuff, but Billy puts a lot of faith in people to be good and kind of had blinders on. I'm sure if Nate—Kang—showed up in Vallo, Billy would drop everything to say all the nicest shit about him. He's such a dumbass," Tommy said, but he said it fondly. Billy was his dumbass brother. He'd punch anyone who said otherwise.
He should have mentioned something about Wanda and the great chocolate dental situation, but it didn't feel like the time. Safe space, and all. "I've heard Billy mention Darkhold before. Like, before here. Vallo, whatever."
And Tommy tried to recall what he could remember—the bad, the good, the history. Not much was coming to mind. Tommy had not been a super-fan of their mom before they knew she was their mom.
Tommy frowned, and in a rare display of affection initiative, he put an arm around Wanda's shoulders. "We're not going anywhere, and I don't think you need a creepy book to find us. We'll always find each other. I think it's magically built in or something," Tommy said, gesturing at himself. "I think, not sure how soul stuff works, but that's what I'm gonna say."
Wanda was silent for a moment there. Billy, seeing the good in everyone - in Kang - was very typical of him, and she would be smiling if it didn’t make her stomach knot. He Who Remains was inevitable, then. Inevitable like Thanos.
What did make her smile, though, was Tommy. We’ll always find each other. She didn’t even really know how her own magic worked when it came to the three of them being bonded the way they were but she wanted to believe that so desperately she wouldn’t dare protest.
Then there was a frown. “I’m afraid of what I would do to get to the two of you,” Wanda admitted and forced herself to look away from him. “Of what that book might convince me to do. I know I was looking for ways to bring you and Billy back to me in a way that would make you…” No, real wasn’t the right term. Of course they were real; Billy and Tommy weren’t puppets. They were manifestations of hopes and dreams and love. “In a way that would make you both stay with me, for good.”
Letting them go in Westview had been hard, comparable to having her hand forced to destroy the Mind Stone by killing Vision. It had also been the right thing to do (she struggled with that, sometimes), but the Darkhold in her possession made her not care about the consequences of getting them back. “I might break our world even more than I have. I think I will make everything worse.”
Which could very well add stress to her future marriage, too.
It was hard to watch Wanda struggle through the what ifs—Tommy wasn't used to it, even if he knew that it was in their blood to go through dangerous lengths to get each back. It was kind of stereotypical Maximoff family behavior, and he had watched Billy do it all the time. And okay, he had done it a few times too, but he wasn't going to admit it now.
"I think, ughhhh." Feelings, he felt them coming up in that messy squirmy way that made his skin feel ten times too tight and everything too slow for Tommy's tastes. "I think everyone is gonna make mistakes, and when it comes to people who are important to you, like family and shit, you're gonna get extra influenced by solutions to help them because that's what you, and Billy, and me, and like, I don't know, human people do. We want to help and fix and mend the people we care about the most."
Tommy made it sound simple, even though he knew there were things like nuance and consequence—he had seen the ramifications of when Wanda had her family taken away from her. But also Tommy knew that it was easy to make one person the villain without anyone else taking responsibility for making them that way.
"And let's be real, that book is a piece of shit. You shouldn't let a book make you doubt yourself. I trust you not to be swayed by dark magic shit. So if it shows up, Billy and I will dunk it in the ocean and throw it in a volcano. However you destroy magic books, we'll do it. You know, if you're worried about it influencing you in a bad way."
Wanda’s mistakes had a habit of being rather… catastrophic. Came with the territory of being some ‘mythical figure’ as outlined in the Darkhold and all, though she really despised having her identity being dictated by some (literally) damned book. She also felt this pang of guilt too, having Tommy reassure her like this. It wasn’t her intention to sit on his floor to mope but the conversation swayed in that grim direction.
“That book is a piece of shit,” she repeated in agreement and doing her best to sound grave about it except she was mostly amused. Wanda may have also been looking at Tommy with some degree of adoration and pride; maybe not too much of it to avoid overwhelming him and putting him in the spotlight but it was definitely present. She wouldn’t apologize for it. “Thank you. I needed the pep talk, I think. Hard to worry about something when I can imagine all the creative ways you and Billy would try to murder an evil book.”
(She also imagined they would try to sort it out via text; it would be nothing but strings of semi-coherent caps locking. They were adorable.)
"Hell yes, that book is a piece of shit," Tommy echoed again, encouragingly. He even gave a little fist bump. What was bonding with your mom if she wasn't happily repeating your own words back to you? Tommy might have been a bad influence on Wanda.
"If you're going to worry about something controlling you because we're gone, then Billy and I are here to get really graphic about how we'll fight it. If you can be protective of us, we can be protective of you. That's just how the parents-kids thing works," Tommy said, grossly confident, before pausing, thinking it through again, and shoved a Peep in his mouth for extra thinking time. He nodded, coming to a decision. "Yeah, that sounds right for now."
Tommy, usually so careful with his affection and not much of a hugger, felt comfortable enough with Wanda to let that self imposed rule slip. Besides, they were alone. He shimmied lower so that he could put his head on Wanda's shoulder. Very brief, but just enough to be comforting about it.
"We're gonna be okay. I've been around too many time travelers getting super freaked about the future, they don't think about the present. Fatal flaw or some shit. We have a load of candy to get sick on, we're not gonna worry about the stomach ache we're probably gonna have later. Ruins the mood." A bad analogy but he hoped Wanda understood.
Oh no. Were her eyes watering? Somewhat. Wanda wasn’t crying, no, that wasn’t it - but she may be feeling kind of raw right now. Tommy was sweet. He wasn’t overly affectionate, and she respected that. But the times he let his guard down and gave her more of the glimpse of the little boy she spent such a short time with back at Westview were cherished, imprinted in her memory forever. Vallo could easily take him away just like it brought him to her.
So obsessing and dwelling on hypotheticals (or, arguably, inevitables) was dumb. That’s how he was essentially describing it anyway, but in the most loving way. Wanda appreciated that.
“Like I said - chocolate is why I wore sweatpants,” she chuckled, and grinned, and brown was still smeared over her front teeth. It would have been embarrassing if she noticed. “I think this may count as emotional eating but I don’t care. Please pass the caramel peeps. I’m going to test how many of them I can fit in my mouth.”
This was going to be horrendous on their stomachs later. It was quality time with her son, however. Worth it.