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WHO: Wanda Maximoff, Vision, Tommy Shepherd, Billy Kaplan, Sansa Stark, Vision
WHERE: Billy and Tommy's room, then Wanda and Vision's space
WHAT: Some Secrets Shouldn't Keep? Aka Billy and Tommy FINALLY tell Wanda she's a mom. Sorta? And then Wanda goes to Sansa and Vision to talk about what she has learned.
WHEN: Early January
WARNINGS: Emotions, discussion of death of previous incarnations.

They'd been putting this off too long. Far too damn long. Since they showed up. Tommy sighs and when he wakes up he's high energy. High anxious energy. Because they've been doing this too long. They've been hiding and lying and Tommy? He can't take it anymore.

So he reaches over to Billy, starts shaking his shoulder and keeps prodding until Billy wakes up.

"Get up, dude. We're going to talk to Wanda. I can't do this anymore. We gotta... We just gotta. Today. Now. Get up."

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The look of mild concern on Wanda's face deepens. Its early, they didn't call or text first, and she can feel the anxiety rolling off them without even trying. It's enough to make her stomach start twisting itself into knots in sympathy.

"Come in," she says, ushering them inside. The furniture is a mix of newly-crafted items and things they had found at 'space-IKEA' and fixed or cobbled together. She had once taken such pride in having a space of her own to decorate, and this is far from how she'd like it to look. But it's home.

More to the point, there's a couch (surprisingly complete with pillows) and a table with several chairs.

"Can I get you anything?"

"Nice stuff," Tommy muses as he comes inside. Their space hasn't been decorated much by him. Really should head to space-IKEA to get them more stuff. The only thing he cares about in there are the paintings Vision did of the family. But the couch definitely wins his attention. He's across the room in a breath and flopping down on it, trying to hide the dizziness threatening him again.

"Thanks for inviting us in. Maybe you can get us coffee, B?"

"Oh, uh, yeah, sure, no problem." Billy makes a vague gesture with his hands, a blue enveloping them that looks very similar to Wanda's magic, and a moment later he's holding two coffee. They look like Starbucks, though a closer look will show he's changed it to Billybucks, a chibified version of Wiccan standing in for the Siren.

"I wasn't sure how you liked it," he apologizes, offering one cup to Wanda. Tommy's preference he knows, crossing to hand the other to his brother and taking a seat beside him.

Hands free, he magics up his own drink, and tries not to look too awkward.

"So um...how do you wanna start this?"

"How did you--" Wanda laughs and takes the cup, grateful for it no matter how it tastes. "I wish I could do that." And the little Billybucks modification is a nice touch.

She takes a long drink of the coffee and uses her powers to pull a chair across the room for her to settle into. It seems like no one's hurt, at least, but now she's just confused. It was important enough to show up at her door this early but no urgent that there isn't time for coffee. "Maybe you should start at the beginning. What happened?"

"Billy's a reality warper," Tommy answers with a shrug. Something that runs in the family and is absolutely going to be explained in the course of this he expects. And so Tommy takes a sip of his drink. "This place seems to diminish that some but not nearly as much as it could. Enough that he can't take us back to where we're from though."

But he has to laugh at the idea of the beginning.

"Which one? The beginning three years ago, or the one nineteen? Whatever. What happened is that there's this stupid complex story you need to hear."

Billy nods to affirm Tommy's answer, flashing Wanda a shy sort of smile. Really, the answers been staring her in the face all this time. Twins. One magic, one a speedster. One with dark colouring, one with light...

"It's about us. And our Wanda," Billy starts, fiddling with his cup.

It's not that Wanda isn't perceptive, it's just that she doesn't have any reason to make that close of a connection. Her Pietro had been born with brown hair like hers and for all she knows white hair is just a speedster trait. And her powers are completely different from Billy's.

She is perceptive enough that that ambient nervousness seems to coalesce. She tilts her head at them, eyes going to Tommy. "This sounds serious. Is this part of why you were worried about me accidentally seeing into your head?" She knows there's something about what he's told her about his family that seems strange, but the other Wanda's life is so different that it's hard to put her finger on it. It's just...hard to believe that she wouldn't have known about a cousin ending up in that awful place she'd seen in their shared nightmare.

Edited 2020-01-06 17:05 (UTC)

“Yeah. There is a lot of stuff back home that sucks. And you don’t deserve to have to live through our shut. Heroes and heroics and mutant issues and oppression and all that? You sure as fuck don’t need it.”

Should he just say it? But he can’t, right? Dammit how do you tell this to a person that matters.

“We’re... Maximoffs. By soul. Not blood.”

"Originally by blood," Billy adds, wincing a little, sure that only adds to the utter confusion of what they're saying. Their existence is particularly complicated. "...there's a lot of magic involved," he explains, and that's probably all ready a whole LOT to process, so he gives her a moment before they start getting into the details.

Well, she's not yet at the point where she wishes Loki was here to translate magical nonsense into actual words, so it could be worse. She's actually mostly following along!

"So you are...reincarnated? My - the other Wanda's - ancestors? That's real in your world?" It would explain how the twins ended up in different families, at least, as well as a bunch of things that seemed really weird about Tommy's story.

So close. So very close. And yet so far away. Then again, could Wanda even begin to fathom the power difference? The depths she hasn’t been able to touch yet?

“It’s... a form of reincarnation. Pretty sure we’re unique. But Wanda... we’re not her ancestors.
We’re her sons.”

And there is the bomb. Clearly there are a lot of details still to be there, but Tommy’s trying not to shake. He holds his coffee tighter and tries not to crush it.

"Retro...reincarnated," Billy mumbles. It doesn't seem nearly so important to correct now, but he's anxious and needs to say something.

And then Tommy says the actual words, and Billy shifts his hand to catch at the wrist closest to him, giving a comforting squeeze.

"...Her and Vision's. We...we've been trying to figure out how to tell you."

Wanda's eyes widen in shock. "You...what?" It's not that she thinks they're lying - why would anyone lie about something like this? - but that she can't quite wrap her brain around it. It doesn't make any sense, and that's not even counting unpacking whatever 'retro-reincarnation' is. "I don't understand. That...that isn't possible. We can't..."

"Yeah, they couldn't either," Tommy shrugs. And doesn't want to THINK about any form of parents having sex. "But magic and a lot of force of will and no small bit of reality warping."

It's nice, to have that touch from Billy. Tommy doesn't even think before turning the grip at his wrist into fingers tangled together. He won't admit that it happened later of course. He didn't need that sorta comfort. Duh. But he's scared that she's going to reject them, despite hearing this.

"Come on, Wanda. Twin boys that look a bit like you, one who has colorful magic and the other who is a speedster? Wiccan and Scarlet Witch? Speed and Quicksilver? We're connected, we're what she wanted us to be. Or, well, William and Thomas were what she wanted."

Billy can't make coffee either, but each of them has a cup. Magic can do a whole lot, from the mundane to the miraculous.

"I know it's a lot to...deal with. But um...we didn't feel right keeping it from you all this time. We figured you deserved to know what you are to us back home. We've just...been trying to figure out how to tell you. And it doesn't necessarily mean you're going to do the same. Our worlds are really different, obviously, but..."

She stares, overwhelmed and at a complete loss for words. It's a lot to take in, and Wanda has so many questions and it's hard to know where to start. But there's one thing that's obvious: they're both really nervous and she needs to do or say something to soothe it. So--

"You shouldn't have to keep that to yourselves. It's too much," she says. "I'm sorry that you have." And now what? Wanda doesn't know what they want or need her to be now, she just really doesn't want to screw this up for them. "I still have so many questions but--" Her voice falters, and she's never had Vision's gift for pretty words anyway. So instead, she stands and takes a few steps to try to gather them both up in a hug, if they'll allow it.

They... haven't. Tommy's already told Vision. And Sansa. Both times as mistakes. But he's not throwing that part out there.

"Just... feels wrong lying to you," Tommy agrees with Billy. "Letting you think that we're just... some great-nephews or whatever. Or that someone in our family, someone she's related to, would let all the shit that happened to me happen. And if someone else from our version of home came here, they might just say it. About how lucky we are to have you here, and have a version of Vision that gives a damn about us. It's all..."

He trails off, wishing he could just run away. But he won't. Not from this. To see her stand, though, to approach them. He frowns.

"Would... is that really okay?"

Is that okay with her is what he means to say. Because he could REALLY go for a mom hug now. Even if it isn't his mother.

Billy tugs Tommy upright with an soft squeeze, even before Wanda's given an answer. She's the one who approached them, they aren't forcing it on her, it's implicit permission.

"Come on," he encourages, knowing just how much it will mean to them. To Tommy especially.

"It's all right," she says gently. "I lost all of my family. I have room for more." It makes her heart hurt that Tommy's had such a bad experience with his other-other parents that he seems to think that there's a real possibility that she'd reject them. It's true that Wanda doesn't really know what she's doing or how to be someone's mom, but they'll all figure something out. Because that's what family does.

So they can hug her as long as they want. Wanda's definitely not going to be the first to let go.

Well, they aren't really asking her to be their mother. Just... just to be family. But the lie between them had been too heavy. But he does let his brother pull and he does move to meet Wanda and squeezes both his twin and Wanda to him.

"I'm sorry you're alone back there, except Vision," Tommy says. "You deserve better than that."

A lot better.

Billy nods, and wonders how it is her hugs feel the same even if she's not their Wanda. "You do," he agrees.

"And...you can ask us whatever you want, we can try to explain. But the magic means it all gets pretty...complicated," he cautions.

Edited 2020-01-09 20:17 (UTC)

She's a little smaller than their Wanda, but she holds them just as tightly, with just as much conviction. And for a while she's content to just stand there and hold them and provide whatever tactile reassurance they need. It's...nice. She gets plenty of hugs from Vision, of course, and it's not like she's touch-averse with her friends. But now she actually knows who they are to her other self.

Wanda has so many questions. Picking just one to start is hard, but there's one thing she's getting stuck on. So when they part, she smiles nervously and picks the most burning one. "If you're sure you don't mind...what is retro-reincarnation?"

Edited 2020-01-10 04:46 (UTC)

Oh come on, the set up is too brilliant for Tommy to resist. But Wanda can't know that. So as she releases them he offers her a smirk, bright and flashing and pure mischief. Maybe even a bit like his uncle.

"We were reincarnating before it was cool," Tommy offers, putting on his absolute best ~~worst~~ hipster voice.

Billy rolls his eyes, clearly all ready so over that joke.

"As best we can figure, it means after William and Thomas died, their souls were reincarnated in the past. So we're a lot older than we should be to Wanda. She went from toddlers to teenagers in a pretty short space of time."

Wanda just snickers. Oh, she knows that expression on Tommy's face too well, and even if it's not a great joke, Billy's reaction makes it worth it.

And it's a welcome respite of humor because...oh, she can only imagine. Had the other Wanda had an accident with her powers and killed her own children? Or had they been killed by someone trying to get revenge on her or her husband? She's not going to ask, but...these are all possibilities that she'd mulled over for her own future at one time or another. "That must have been so difficult for all of you. I'm so sorry."