Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There's a new family at the service.

Not unusual by itself. There's always someone new coming through town. What's a bit odd, though, is how they linger in the pews while everyone else is filing out.

Elias takes up his usual spot at the door, shaking hands and checking in with people one-by-one as they leave. The new family talks quietly among themselves. Until everyone else (even Señora Estrada, who just got a new walker, but still couldn't outrun a turtle) has shuffled all the way out.

At last they get up, the adults both scanning the room as they approach.

For the first time, Elias gets a good look at their faces. The man and woman, a generation younger than him, look like most of the Latine Jews in the area, with tan skin and dark curly hair. The two boys, eleven or twelve years old at Elias's best guess, are a lot paler. Adopted? Stepchildren?

He makes a point of not staring until they get close, then holds out a hand. "Welcome to our synagogue. I'm Rabbi Elias Spector. Are you new in town?"

The woman leans forward with a brilliant smile -- vaguely familiar, but Elias can't place it -- and a soft handshake. "Lovely to finally meet you, Rabbi Spector."

She turns to her...partner? (No rings. But that could mean anything these days.) Both boys look expectantly up at him too. (They're all wearing matching suits. It's very sweet.)

He's gone still, eyes fixed on Elias, mouth half-open but nothing coming out.

In an undertone, the woman says, "Time to take it off, habibi."

"Right," says the man, throat dry. He turns to one of the boys. "You're sure we're--"

The kid gives him a suspicious look. "We're clear. Are you stalling?"

The man sighs.

He feels under his buttoned collar with both hands, catches hold of something Elias can't quite see, and starts pulling it up.

...It's one of those perfect nanotech-mesh masks. The kind you see in James Bond movies. The kind the US government won't admit SHIELD has for real.

And the face underneath is--

"Hi, Dad," says Marc, while Elias does his own round of open-mouthed staring. "Can we go somewhere and talk?"

☽︎

They gather in Elias's office: the boys wandering around looking at the cluttered shelves, Marc shutting the door and double-checking that it latches.

"Baruch Ata Adonai, elohenu melech Ha’olam, mechayeh ha'metim," says Elias hoarsely. When Marc doesn't look at him, he restrains himself from adding more. But how could he skip the blessing for a beloved reunion, after all this time without a word? "It's so good to see you, mijo. And are you his wife? Layla?"

That's where he's seen her smile before, in the wedding photos. (Elias made sure to intercept the envelope before Wendy saw it, and kept them at the office so they wouldn't upset her. They're still in here...somewhere.)

"That's right," says Layla, a lot warmer than Marc is. "You don't have grandkids, though. Sorry."

"Then who are--"

Layla cuts him off: "Before we start talking, you should probably hug."

Marc takes a step toward Elias. "If you want."

"Of course!" Elias's arms are around him in an instant, chin tucked over his shoulder. "Of course I want a -- Marc, I've missed you so much."

Marc's return squeeze isn't as desperately tight, but it's not nothing, either. "Missed you too, Dad."

"Why did you come back? Why now? How long are you staying? How--"

"Long story. It all goes together. You should probably sit down."

Elias rolls his own chair out from behind his desk, the way he does when he's taking a personable-counselor kind of meeting, not a synagogue-business meeting.

Before he can offer to clear some of the piles off the windowsill, Marc is already doing it, stacking the books on the end of the desktop. The boys cluster on the freed-up ledge, one kicking his heels, the other holding still.

Layla sits on one of the normal chairs. Elias sits too.

Marc stays by the boys a moment longer. "This is Billy," he says, resting a hand on the shoulder of the less-fidgety brother. "And this is Tommy."

He gently pushes the more-restless brother to lean forward. Tommy goes with it, still swinging his legs, but holding steady enough for Marc to re-pin the yarmulke that's come loose in his shoulder-length brown hair.

"Like Layla said, they're not our kids. Their mom is...a dear friend of ours. And she's in trouble. The kind where she needs someone to watch her children for a while."

He doesn't give details in front of the boys. Fair enough. Elias hums in sympathy, while Marc finally settles into the last chair.

"Listen, there's a bunch of conditions with this, but I'm just going to throw the main thing on the table. Can we hide out with you?"

"...what?" Elias is staring again. "All of you -- at the house?"

"Yeah."

"It doesn't have to be the whole time," puts in Layla. "Even a day or two would help. Give us a chance to catch our breaths and plan our next steps."

"Mom could be back in two days, anyway," says Tommy casually.

Elias throws a dubious look at Marc, who presses his mouth into a thin line. "She could, yeah. We're planning for a longer haul -- could be weeks -- but if we get really lucky, she could be through this tomorrow. We really don't know."

"Marc, if you're going to visit, I would be happy for it to be weeks," says Elias faintly. "It's just -- are you sure? Last time you were in town...you wouldn't even come through the door."

"That's what makes it the perfect hideout," deadpans Marc. "Even if someone figures out the kids are with us, the last place they'll look for me is here."

Elias swallows a nervous laugh. "You make it sound like you're on the run from the mob."

Dead silence.

"Marc. Is the mob after these boys?"

"We wouldn't hide from the mob," scoffs Tommy. He grins at Billy, nudging his brother in the ribs. "Imagine what Mom would do to the mob."

Billy looks somber. "Imagine what Grandpa would do to the--"

"Boys," warns Layla. "Op-sec."

Both kids clamp their mouths shut.

"We can't give you details, Dad," says Marc firmly. "Just, look, it's pretty serious. Which is where the conditions come in. You'd have to promise not to tell anyone about the boys. Don't bring anyone to the house while they're here. Don't let on that anything changed."

"At least one of us will always be there," adds Layla. "If anyone does show up and try to make trouble...we'll handle it."

This is...wow. This is a lot.

And if Elias says he's not up for it...who knows how many more years will pass before he sees Marc again?

"Stay a few days," he says at last. "Maybe it goes well, maybe it doesn't, who can say? Maybe you stay longer. We'll find out. At least start with a few days."

"Okay. Great." Marc takes a deep breath. "One more thing..."

Elias waits.

"The boys are both mutants. Is that going to be a problem?"

"Wh--no! No problem," says Elias quickly. "No problem at all. What kind of mutants?"

"Does it matter?"

"I just mean -- the kind of mutants where I need to fireproof the house, or...?"

Marc turns to the kids, all business. "You want to give him a demo?"

With a whoosh of air that rustles everyone's curls, Tommy disappears from the window seat. Elias startles, looks around -- and finds him on the opposite side of the office. "Ah! A speedster! That's very impressive..."

He does a double-take.

It wasn't just a run. In that split second, all the books and binders that were on the shelves behind Tommy's head got rearranged. No more awkward, heaping piles. No more individual volumes shoved too far back against the wall, or sticking precariously out over the edge. They're all in a row, all standing up straight...and rearranged by height. Of course a lot of the S'farim are in sets of a matched size anyway -- the bottom two shelves are still the complete Talmud, that hasn't moved -- but the topmost shelf now has a distinct pyramid, shortest items at the outer edges, peaking with an extra-tall binder in the center.

"Oh," says Elias faintly. "I, uh. I had a system."

"Sounds like someone else we know," says Layla, politely amused. "Billy?"

Another whoosh has Tommy back at Billy's side -- no wonder he fidgets, he's a world-class talent at not holding still -- while Billy holds out a hand and furrows his brow.

The nearest stack of post-it notes on Elias's desk glows a soft blue, and lifts into the air.

His telekinesis might not be as advanced as Tommy's speeding. The post-its only hover for a few seconds before thwopping back onto the polished wood. Billy turns anxiously to Marc and Layla. "Was that good?"

"That was great, buddy," says Marc. "It was just right."

☽︎

When Elias gets back to the house that evening, the windows are all dark.

Marc said he and the others had to pick some things up. But if they haven't made it home, even now? Elias had assumed the errands wouldn't take longer than his office hours.

Did something go wrong? Or -- did Marc change his mind?

He lets himself in...

And there's light in the kitchen, and friendly chatter. Elias touches the mezuzah without taking his eyes off the light, hangs his coat in the closet next to a row of new ones, and walks past a huddle of four mismatched suitcases to see what's cooking.

Layla's voice comes into focus as he gets to the kitchen/dining-room door: "...exactly what all my aunties used to say to me." She puts on an exaggerated Middle Eastern accent: "Ooh, Layla sweetie, if this is the best you can cook, how will you ever land a husband?" Back in her normal register: "Little did they know, a few years later I met Marc, who thinks anything less processed than an MRE is fine cuisine."

Tommy chimes in: "And then you met--"

Billy stomps on Tommy's foot -- or tries to, Tommy yanks it out of his way just in time. "Dude! Op-sec!"

"Hi, Rabbi," adds Layla.

She's at the sink, washing her way through a garden's worth of fresh fruits and vegetables. The boys are putting away cereal boxes from the half-unpacked grocery bags on the table. Marc looks up briefly from the stove, then turns back to the pan he's tending, filling the room with scents of spices Elias doesn't even recognize.

"Just call me Elias, please," says Elias. "I didn't know -- the windows were dark -- you bought groceries? You didn't need to, you know, for the first few days, I could've covered the groceries for a few days..."

"We're asking you to host two athletic adults and two growing boys. At least one of which has the metabolism of a fighter jet." Layla stacks some oranges neatly in a bowl. "We won't make you pay to feed us. We'll cook, too. If you have any special requests...mm, let's say, put it on a post-it."

"Whatever you're making now smells just perfect." Elias circles around the table -- they unfolded and propped up the extra leaves on either end, so it can comfortably seat up to six, instead of topping out at four -- and has a look at the stove. "What is it?"

Marc throws a wide-eyed grimace at Layla and gestures for...something.

"Vegan stir-fry. Personal recipe," fills in Layla. "Actually, Elias, while he's finishing up -- would you mind helping me figure out where everyone's going to sleep?"

It's an obvious distraction, but all right, Elias lets himself be distracted.

He takes her upstairs, shows her the rooms they have. His own room on the second floor, along with the restrooms and his study ("anything of mine that's private, I'll keep in here"). Marc's old room on the top floor, though there's almost nothing of Marc's left in it ("we redid it as a guest room a few years after he moved out"). The room across from Marc's, which is almost empty, except for a stack of boxes piled against the wall.

"This one...it used to be his brother's," explains Elias. "I packed everything up just last year. Would've put in a new bed, but, well, it's been so long since I even had one room's worth of guests..."

Layla gives him a shrewd look. "Was this ever a guest room? Or do you mean you packed his brother's things up last year?"

Elias looks away. "Seeing them was...a comfort to his mother."

One of the few things that seemed to comfort Wendy, even when little else did. She used to spend hours in there. Elias made sure he went in every once in a while, mostly to dust.

(one time he found that some creature had been chewing fluff out of the stuffed animals, he threw the ruined ones in the synagogue dumpster so Wendy wouldn't get upset seeing them in the trash, then instead Wendy accused Marc of stealing Randall's things, there was a lot of screaming and--)

(one time Wendy found Marc in the room, there was a fight, Elias only found out about that one afterward, he stayed up late into the night putting everything back in place so she wouldn't come in the next day and accuse Marc of knocking it all over--)

"Rabbi? Elias."

He shakes himself. "Sorry -- say again? Senior moment, you know how it is."

"Right, yeah, of course," says Layla. "I was saying, you should keep your room. We'll figure out who gets the guest room."

"Oh, no -- you and Marc should take one of the big beds, and the boys can take the other, if they're all right with doubling up -- the TV room has a very lovely couch, or--"

Layla interrupts him. "Marc was a Marine, I'm an archaeologist. We can sleep on rocks if it comes to that. We're not going to make our host spend his nights on a couch. Especially not our senior host."

All right, Elias had that coming.

☽︎

Marc and Layla have a hushed conversation in the living room while Elias and the boys are dishing up stir-fry. When they come back in, Marc says, "Dad, do you still have that old futon in the basement?"

With another whoosh!, Tommy vanishes, then reappears. "Yeah, he does!"

So it all works out: Marc and his wife will sleep on the big bed in his old room, Elias will keep his own, Billy and Tommy will double up on the futon in Randall's.

But first, dinner. Accompanied by a rousing discussion of op-sec. (Turns out it's short for "operational security," which is military for "secrets.")

"A cleaning service comes every other Wednesday," remembers Elias, between chunks of what he assumes is fried tofu. "They mop, vacuum, change the sheets...they're the reason your room isn't a mess of dust right now."

"Cancel it." Marc switches his fork for a pen, and scribbles something on a little notepad next to his plate. "Or...they probably have some kind of vacation hold, right? Put it on hold."

"We'll keep the place clean in the meantime," adds Layla. "The twins will be inside anyway, might as well make them do chores."

Elias hadn't realized they were twins! Not the identical kind, just the same age. Although their chorus of "Awwww" is in perfect harmony. 

"Inside how much?" adds Tommy, while Billy uses his knife to skeptically remove the tip of a hot pepper. "Because we can go outside without being seen. I'm fast enough."

"For the next couple days: all the time. Show us you can keep that up when you have to. Then we'll talk about trips," says Marc. To Elias, he adds, "We put modified photostatic veils on the windows. Camouflages what's going on inside. That way they can still get sunlight and blue skies, without having to worry about who's looking in."

"Turning the house into a regular fortress," says Elias, trying to keep it light. "Maybe next we should put in bulletproof glass, you think?"

"Too much work to install," says Marc, perfectly serious. "Couldn't do it without drawing attention."

Even more soberly, Billy says, "We're not worried about bullets."

"Anyone else who might drop by?" asks Layla, a little too brightly. "Do you get a lot of door-to-door salespeople around here? Ever host a book club?"

"No to the salespeople," says Elias. "And book club meets at Rosita's house."

He used to have guests more often -- at least, when Wendy felt up to entertaining. The last time Elias had any serious group of people in the house was her shiva. Since then, he's most likely to get invited to his congregants' homes instead...he was at the Berensons' for Shabbat dinner just last night...

Tommy puts on a saucy smirk. "Ever bring home a girlfriend?"

Elias winces. "No."

"A boyfriend?"

"No!" yelps Elias. Then, because it's the 2020s and he's not that behind the times, he remembers to add, "Not that there's anything wrong with that."

In a normal voice, not his brother's mischievous singsong, Billy says, "Any students?"

"Uh. Yes, actually." That's the one group Elias still hosts at the house. It's not the most regular thing, but..."Sometimes I have a few over for dinner."

Layla hums. "When are you doing that next?"

"There aren't any scheduled. It wouldn't be for a few weeks at least."

Marc jots that down on his notepad too. "So we might be long gone by that point. On the off chance we're not...how much advance notice would you need to cancel?"

"Maybe we shouldn't ask him to cancel everything," says Layla. "Eventually people would notice."

"I could..." Elias swallows. "Without saying anything about the boys...if I tell people Marc is visiting, and I'm focusing on spending time with him? Everyone will understand."

"There's an idea," mutters Marc. "Tell everyone your crazy estranged son is in town, and you have to be extra-careful not to make him flip out and run off again."

Elias winces. "Of course that's not how I would say it, mijo."

"I wasn't thinking we should tell anything," adds Layla uncomfortably. "I was mostly thinking, we could probably manage 'hiding upstairs and keeping quiet' for the length of one dinner."

With perfect ironic timing, Tommy fumbles his drink. The water glass hits the tile with a shattering CRASH that makes everyone jump.

(one time Elias got in here with a dustpan and broom not a moment too soon, Wendy was yelling at Marc to clean up the mess of ceramic shards on the floor, and what was the boy supposed to do, sweep them up with his bare hands? Elias helped Marc clean up, assuring him there was nothing wrong with dropping a dish or two, everyone gets clumsy sometimes...)

(...that was what happened, right, little Marc just dropped the plate...?)

Elias shakes himself again.

Fortunately, it doesn't seem like anyone was trying to get his attention in the middle of that senior moment. They're all fascinated with the blue-glowing chunks of glass swirling slowly through the air, a matching glow in Billy's eyes as he focuses on puzzle-piecing them neatly back into place.

☽︎

Marc and Layla effortlessly carry the futon's wooden frame up three flights of stairs to Randall's room. They don't even seem to need an assist from Billy's powers. Elias can't remember if he was ever that young and strong.

The boys follow with their suitcases, and fish out their pajamas while the adults arrange their bed. Elias, watching from the doorway, notices they didn't bring much. Just clothes.

When Marc and Layla come out of the room, Elias meets them on the landing at the top of the stairs. "I don't know if this would be appropriate, but -- if you think it's all right," he stammers. "I donated RoRo's things when I could, but, you know, there's not much of a demand for secondhand thirty-year-old toys...these two are probably too old for a lot of them anyway, but..."

Marc cuts him off: "You've got kid stuff the twins can keep busy with?"

He's using more of a Spanish accent, which makes Elias wince -- Marc always used to lean into that when he was in a mood. "It was just an idea."

(Yes, this means "being more visibly Latino" was part of what Marc did when he was trying to antagonize people, and yes, Elias feels pretty awful about that. But what can he do?)

"Yeah, it's a good idea," says Marc impatiently. "Where is it?"

Elias nods to the room. "In the boxes -- some of them -- I don't remember what's in which."

"Ah, we'll let 'em figure it out." Marc knocks on the doorframe, and leans back into the room with an almost-manic grin. "Ay, chaparritos, you want some authentic Nineties Kid junk to play with?"

To Elias's absolute bafflement, both twins jump to their feet like they just got offered a gold mine. "Authentic like how?" demands Tommy. "Are there Beanie Babies?"

"Are there Furbies?" chimes in Billy.

"Who wants a dumb Furby?" scoffs Tommy. "Are there Tamagotchis?"

"Like you'd remember to feed a Tamagotchi..." Billy's eyes widen. "Wait, are there Pokemon cards?"

Tommy bounces on the balls of his feet. "Is there Gak?"

"It's all in there." Marc points to the boxes. "Open 'em up, see the haul for yourselves. Don't break anything I wouldn't break."

While the twins pounce, Elias adds under his breath. "If there was anything you wanted -- as a memento -- you're welcome to..."

The light that was briefly in Marc's eyes snaps off. "I didn't come here to steal any of RoRo's goddamn stuff."

"Of course not, mijo! I didn't mean--"

Layla, not even trying to be subtle, cuts Elias off by stepping right in front of him. To Marc, she says, "Maybe you should take the first shower, querido."

Marc turns on his heel and heads for the stairs, taking them two at a time. "Nah. I'm great."

He bounds all the way down to the first floor. (Elias was only planning to go down as far as his room, and then be done with steps for the night.)

"It has been decades since I've seen a kid get that excited about Gak," Elias confesses. To Layla, since she's the one who didn't just practically bolt away from him. "Where did the boys even pick all that up?"

"They watch a lot of classic sitcoms," says Layla with a shrug. "I grew up in Egypt, I don't even know what a gak is. Is it good?"

☽︎

He showers, he brushes his teeth, he takes his blood-pressure medication. Drawing all of it out as long as he can.

(He can still hear Marc and the others moving around, and he can't shake the fear that once he goes to sleep, they'll be gone in the morning. Or, worse, that it'll turn out it was all a dream, and he was never there at all.)

With all the other things to attend to, he completely missed reciting havdalah to close out Shabbat -- but the items for that are down in the kitchen. Elias goes back and forth with himself about whether to get them. (Of course you can do it the next day, under the law...but he's never put it off before...but his knees will riot if he goes all the way down and back up the stairs just for one brief ritual...but he does have that cane now, doctor's orders...but he's had such a lovely track record of not needing the cane, why break that now...)

He goes to sit on the bed. Not to lie down yet, just to sit.

If he can't make himself get up again, well, he'll take that as a sign from above that he's supposed to leave havdalah for tomorrow.

...And there's a neat stack of things in the middle of the mattress. Perfectly arranged by size to form a little pyramid, bigger items at the base.

The smallest one, which Elias plucks off the top for a closer look, is a faded photo of him, Wendy, and the boys. Taken at a theme park that went out of business ten years ago. Until this morning, it was on his fridge.

He flips briskly through the rest of the pile, unsurprised to find that it has every family photo he kept around the house. Framed and not. From the fridge, the mantel, the walls.

Elias didn't even notice they were moved -- but then, why should he? If Tommy was the one who gathered them all up, of course the little speedster had time to rearrange everything else to fill in the gaps.

He ends up setting the whole pile on top of his dresser. If it's still there in the morning, at least he'll have the physical proof Marc came to visit, however briefly. 

His habit is to put on the radio and set the sleep timer for half an hour, listening to whatever news happens to be on until he drifts off. Tonight it's about some kind of cape business in New York (it's always New York, isn't it). Attack on the Baxter Building, either by a sorcerer or a mutant, official reports aren't clear.

The building itself was evacuated, but there are casualties. The whole Richards family hasn't been seen since the battle. Even little Franklin is unaccounted for.

(He should really put on something else, if he doesn't want nightmares of little Marc and Randall in that building...but he's already drifting off...)

☽︎

He wakes up in the middle of the night.

No idea when. Late enough that the radio has switched off. Early enough that the sky outside is still pitch dark.

Someone just came in the front door.

Adrenaline rushes through Elias as he worries he's going to get robbed -- then remembers last night, and worries someone is here to grab the children --

He picks up the closest thing he has to a weapon (the cane, which mostly sits unused by the bed), and creeps over to his bedroom door...

Hushed voices in the living room, feet on the stairs, and oh thank goodness, it's Layla's voice that comes into focus. "...any hostiles come within five miles, she'll let us know. Day or night, I might add."

"All right, let's not knock the pigeon, he's working with what he's got," murmurs Marc. In...a fake British accent? The one he used to play-act with as a kid. "But thank goodness for the hippo. And for you! You're wonderful."

A pause. A soft noise from below...oh, they're kissing, aren't they.

Elias would pull his door all the way shut, but then they'll know he's awake. Awkward.

He holds still, trying not to breathe...

"...right, better dial this back," says Marc sheepishly. "I don't know if I could cope with us getting it on in our childhood bedroom."

"Of course, chéri."

Movement up the stairs again. They pass by Elias's door without comment.

A floor above, they pause at the threshold of Marc's room...and Marc murmurs, in the Spanish accent, "I'll fuck in our childhood bedroom."

Layla muffles a snicker. "With a charming come-on like that, how can I resist?"

"Hey, I'm totally charming," protests Marc. "Secret is, you can say literally anything and make it sound sexy if it's in Spanish." He switches languages, and leans into an exaggerated sultry Latin-lover croon: "[Come on down to Uncle Sudsy's car wash, special deal for today only, get a free oil change when you order--]"

He interrupts himself in English: "--oh my days you are ridiculous."

Layla giggles. "What was he even saying?"

They finally go inside, pushing the door shut behind them. Last thing Elias hears is Marc muttering, "Think it was a bloody car commercial."

...Huh.

Elias has no idea what that was, and his adrenaline must be crashing, because suddenly he's too tired to even think about finding out.

He shuffles back to bed. (On his own two feet, not with the cane! He truly doesn't need the cane.) If it's still a problem in the morning...he can deal with it in the morning.

Chapter Text

Morning comes, and Elias's house guests have not disappeared.

He puts on some passable clothes before going downstairs. Marc is at the stove again, boiling a pot of water. Layla's at the table, doing something on her laptop.

She glances up from the screen. "Morning, Rabbi."

"Good morning," says Elias. "I'm sorry, I didn't even think of -- do you need the wi-fi password?"

Layla raises her eyebrows. "How secure is your wi-fi?"

...well, it has a password? That's literally all Elias knows about this. "Ah. Normal secure?"

"Then I'll pass," says Layla. "But thank you for offering."

"Hi, Dad," adds Marc. No longer in the pressed synagogue suit, but comfortable in a dark V-neck shirt and sweatpants.

Almost like he's making himself at home.

"Do you want some tea?"

"That's what you're making?" asks Elias. "You don't have to go to all this trouble, you know you can use the microwave..."

"We've been living in the UK for years, we don't make tea in the microwave." Marc hands Elias a variety pack of teabags. "You're lucky we didn't buy you a kettle." 

Without really looking, Elias picks a tea flavor. Marc ends up ladling the hot water into three different mugs. Puts a disturbing heap of sugar in the first one, and delivers it to Layla. Adds a splash of vegan fake milk to the second, and sits with it at the table beside her.

Elias takes the far end of the table. His tea is all right. Turns out, soy milk isn't so bad.

"So," he says (once he's pretty sure Marc isn't reading over Layla's shoulder, just looking vaguely in her direction). "The UK?"

Marc has a sip from his mug. "Yeah."

"What brought you there? Something for work?"

Marc sighs. "You really have to interrogate me first thing in the morning?"

"Who's interrogating?" exclaims Elias. "I'm taking an interest! A man can't take an interest in what his son has been doing for twenty years?"

"Well, first I was killing people for the US military," says Marc flatly. "Then they kicked me out for being too crazy, so I started killing people freelance."

All right, if he's going to be like that. "You don't want to talk about it, fine. We won't talk about it."

Layla sits back from her laptop and says...something. It's in Arabic, maybe? Not a language Elias knows.

Marc's reply is short, brusque, and in the same language.

Apparently it's permission, because Layla picks up the answer. "Marc did private security in the Middle East and North Africa for a while. Killing people was...not off the table, but not the goal, either. Protecting people was the goal. He pulled off some pretty impressive rescues."

"That won't make Dad any happier," mutters Marc.

"Is that where you two met?" asks Elias, because, see, he can change the subject to avoid unpleasant topics too.

"It is! I got my start doing archaeology around there," says Layla. "Marc ended up as my personal bodyguard for a while. Not exactly a traditional courtship, but it worked."

"That wasn't courtship," protests Marc. "That was bodyguarding."

"We did end up married," says Layla reasonably. "If that's your idea of not courting..."

"Maybe I'm just irresistible," says Marc.

So dry that it takes Elias a second to realize...maybe it's a joke?

"That's probably as much as we should get into," adds Layla, addressing Elias again. "Any more recent career moves, and you'll start speculating about how they connect to the twins. Sorry."

"Of course," says Elias quickly. "No speculation. Op-sec. I...Marc?"

It gets him a sidelong look from Marc. "Yeah?"

The expensive spy tech, the military secrecy talk, the responsibility for a couple of mutant kids in deep-cover protection..."If you worked for SHIELD, you wouldn't be allowed to tell me, right?"

After a couple heartbeats, Marc actually scoots his chair closer, so he can lean forward with his elbows on the table and look Elias straight in the eye.

"No, Dad," he says seriously. "If, hypothetically, we worked for SHIELD, they definitely would not let us tell you."

They all look up at the sound of small footsteps on the stairs...then in the blink of an eye Tommy is standing over Layla's shoulder. "Any news? Is there anything about Mom?"

"The second we hear an update, we'll tell you," says Layla, snapping the laptop shut. "Promise."

...and Elias does a double-take, because Tommy is wearing one of Marc's old shirts.

It must've ended up in the Randall boxes. But it has to be Marc's, because (a) Randall never got that big, and (b) Phantom Menace didn't come out until after he was gone.

"Morning, kiddo," adds Marc. If he recognizes the Star Wars shirt, he doesn't show it. "Your breakfast options are instant oatmeal or cereal."

Tommy whips over to the cupboards, while Billy appears at more normal speed in the doorway. (In his own plain red shirt, but wearing a row of colorful '90s slap bracelets on both forearms.) "Was there something about Mom?"

"No."

"...really?"

For a long, strange moment, Marc and Billy seem to be locked in a staring contest. Layla sucks in a breath, watching with narrowed eyes. Even Tommy pauses, in the middle of tearing open a box of Crunch Berries.

"Yeah, really," says Marc, leaning into the Spanish accent again. "And if she gets back and finds out we're not feedin' you the most important meal of the day, she's gonna have us for breakfast. Oatmeal or cereal, vàmonos."

☽︎

While Elias is showing the twins how to load the dishwasher, Marc slips out of the kitchen. 

Elias is surprised when it turns out he hasn't gone far: he's right in the living room, sitting on the wide flat windowsill at one of the back windows, looking out at the woods.

He has one sock foot up on the sill. Elias swallows the instinctive put your feet down, mijo. It was really Wendy who had a problem with feet on things, and Wendy's not here.

Instead, he sits on the other back windowsill (with his feet on the floor, to be a good example), and offers, "Did you have plans for the boys this afternoon?"

"Mm."

Elias can't tell if that was a yes or a no. "Would they like games? Books? Anything on the shelves down here, they're welcome to read. TV? I don't know if you saw the new TV, it's one of the big smart ones, can get practically anything you want to watch..."

"Actually."

Marc pauses. Elias waits. 

Finally, Marc looks at him. "I'm going to run the boys through some self-defense practice. Is that something you'll let us do in the house? Or should we go outside somewhere?"

"Outside?"

"Yeah."

"What happened to all that about keeping the boys hidden?"

"Not outside like on the street. Outside like in the woods," says Marc. "Tommy wasn't kidding when he said he can move too fast to be seen. And he can bring Billy with him. Obviously I'd rather keep it in here...but I'm going to be telling them that if someone tries to hit them, they're allowed to hit back. And I can't have you interfering with that."

Elias winces. "All their special powers, you can't teach them to use those instead? Tommy can't just dodge any hit? Billy can't use the, the telekinesis, to hold them off?"

With a sigh, Marc gets up. "The woods it is."

"No, wait!"

If something happens...if the boys get lost...

Of course Marc would be careful, but Elias wouldn't know for sure that everything was okay until they got back. He won't get anything done all day, if he's not sure.

"I'm not their parent. Nobody asked me to be their parent," he says. "You want to teach them whatever you think is best...it won't be any of my business. Please stay."

Marc still looks dubious. "You can handle it? You're not going to start criticizing?"

Can Elias handle keeping his many, many concerns to himself? "You need someone to leave the house? I'll leave the house."

☽︎

He ends up staying out longer than he meant to.

Drives out to the kosher bakery to get a sweet treat for his guests. (He's never kept kosher at home, and the boys must not either, or Marc would've brought it up already -- but it's never a bad time to support local Jewish businesses.) He spends much too long trying to infer, based on knowing them for less than twenty-four hours, which flavors Layla and the boys will like.

Then he runs into the Carreras, who can talk for hours. They always find a reason to bring up their oldest daughter -- she's some big-time sorcerer now, practically running the Los Angeles Sanctum if you can believe it, they're very proud -- and today the reason is, Rabbi Spector, what's the appropriate blessing to ask God to watch over your loved ones in a magic battle?

No, a really magic battle. One of the Avengers got possessed, one of the big ones -- seems to happen every week, honestly, you'd think somebody would do something about that -- and is going around the world to start fights at all the Sanctums. So, what's the prayer for such a thing?

He's awfully tired by the time he pulls back up to the house.

At least the trip served its real purpose: any fighting in here is over. Someone's phone is serenading the living room with a gentle instrumental playlist, heavy on the violins. The boys are sprawled on the carpet reading. Layla is on the loveseat with a book of her own.

(For Billy: a ragged fantasy paperback. For Tommy: a biography that Elias is pretty sure also belonged to Marc, of some famous race-car driver. For Layla: one of Elias's denser history books -- which he's almost certain was taken from his study, but he can't even convince his best students to read that one, so he's impressed.)

Tommy looks up from his book and sniffs the air. "Did you get donuts?"

"Maybe." Elias shifts his grip on the bag so he can touch the mezuzah, then looks to Layla. "Is it all right if I got donuts?"

She perks up. "Depends. Are you sharing?"

Elias hands her the box, and they all head to the kitchen. Until he hesitates at the foot of the stairs, when he hears -- over the music, and the splash of the boys washing their hands -- a muffled voice in the rooms above.

He looks sharply at Layla, already taking her first bite of a powdered-sugar donut. "Is somebody up there?"

She blinks at him. Swallows. Licks sugar dust off her lips. "Well, yes? Marc."

"No, I mean -- it sounds like he's talking to someone else."

"He talks to himself sometimes. Helps him think," says Layla, unworried. "Go up and look for yourself, if you want. Oh -- Tommy, zip up there and let Marc know his dad brought lunch."

☽︎

In the evening, they all watch a movie. In deference to the twins' oddly fervent interest in the nineties, it's one of the ones Marc used to like. (On streaming. The original VHS tapes are long gone.)

Takes a while to pick, because Marc makes a point of filtering out all the ones where the child protagonists are tragically separated from their parents. And, gosh, Elias had not realized how many of those there are.

They end up with the DuckTales movie. A cartoon adventure with Indiana Jones-style treasure-hunting, starring brothers who, yes, are in the care of an uncle, but for non-tragic reasons.

It's fun! Elias still falls asleep halfway through.

When he wakes up, he's alone, still in the TV room with his feet up. The lights are all off. Judging by the nearest set of glowing clock digits, the credits must have rolled a while ago.

He gets up. Stretches. Goes out to find Marc and Layla together on the living room couch: his arm around her shoulders, the lights low.

If Elias is interrupting anything, they don't let on. "Hey there," says Layla warmly. "Boys are in bed. Was starting to worry Marc would have to carry you up after them."

"Oh, you wouldn't -- but, did you wait up for me? That was very sweet."

Elias glances around the room. Notices two short stacks of books on an end table, with the fantasy paperback and the sports biography on top.

"I, ah. I could stop by the library tomorrow and get more reading material? It looks like the boys are finding some, but..."

"Better not get too many," says Layla. "It might draw attention if a grown man who's not supposed to have any children at home suddenly starts checking out kids' books."

"There are different branches -- I could go to some of the ones I never visit? Some are miles and miles away. And there must be a hundred of them in the whole system, it would take months before I ever had to visit the same one twice."

Layla blinks. "That...is actually quite a good idea."

"Do they like the nineties books, too?" Elias looks to Marc. "What were some of your favorites? I'll get those."

Marc opens his mouth...takes a couple false starts...and finally says, "I didn't do a ton of reading back then."

"What are you talking about? Of course you did." Putting on an air of confidentiality, Elias tells Layla, "Sometimes he would read them out loud. Pretend like he was lecturing for a class. He even used his best 'professor' voice, if you can imagine."

Elias stops there, because Marc is grimacing as if this sweet childhood story (there's not even any Wendy in it, little Marc saved this for when Wendy wasn't home!) is hard to listen to.

"I can, yeah." Layla subtly takes Marc's hand where it's draped over her shoulder. "Bet it was very cute."

Marc squeezes into her grip, hard. "I'll -- think about it. Try to remember. Give you a list when I've got it."

Elias should go to bed. It should be easier now. Twice so far he's fallen asleep, and still found Marc at home when he woke up.

Instead he grasps for something else to talk about, and lands on, "Do the boys have bar mitzvahs coming up?"

"...hm?"

"Maybe they've had them already? They don't look thirteen, but you haven't said how old they are. Or...I suppose you haven't actually said they're Jewish..."

"They are," says Marc. "By heritage, anyway. I...never talked about it much with their mom, so I don't really know how observant she was. Or what her plans were. You know, mitzvah-wise."

Elias nods. "I don't mean to overstep. I wouldn't want their mother to get them back and think 'Oy, this rabbi from all the wrong traditions, he's indoctrinated my sons!' But if they're supposed to be studying for it right now...I can bring home the books for it, I can answer their questions...they shouldn't have to fall behind."

Marc gently unwinds his arms from Layla, stands, and stretches. Layla stands too, and they have a quick wordless conversation, all in the eyes. (Gosh, they're that married, huh.)

It ends with her dropping a kiss on his cheek, and heading upstairs ahead of him.

"I'll talk to the boys about it. Get a read on what would be...appropriate," he says to Elias. "But it's a good thought. Even if they don't go through the ceremony...probably wouldn't hurt for them to get exposed to more culture than cartoons and Malcolm in the Middle."

He hesitates in front of Elias, a few steps too far back for a hug.

"I'll -- let you know. Thanks, Dad."

☽︎

Another day passes. Then two.

Elias goes to work as usual, and doesn't say a thing about his visitors. Isn't even tempted to. Even though it turns out his son is a big-time SHIELD agent who married an amazing woman and protects children for a living.

Years of practice with Not Talking About Marc have paid off, it seems. Who knew?

He brings home a couple of Intro to Reading Hebrew books. Then a sampling of library books. He has strict instructions to avoid Harry Potter (seems the author got sucked into "biological essentialism" fringe theories, where she is, among other things, stoking anti-mutant violence), but Marc did come up with other recommendations, after all.

Marc makes more delicious dinners, and is very sweet with Layla, and calls the boys cute Spanish nicknames. Along with the general shorties, Billy gets brujito, and Tommy rapidito. Witch-boy and Quickie.

(Yes, that does have the same sexy connotation in Spanish, and yes, Elias is scandalized by it. He keeps it to himself, but honestly. Marc can't call the boy something respectable like veloz?)

At work, they put the Carreras' daughter on the Mi Shebeirach list next service. Kamar-Taj itself was attacked; sorcerers from all around the world got injured fighting it off; even Doctor Strange himself is out of commission. (His own amazing wife, Clea Strange, is filling in as Sorcerer Supreme.)

At home, Elias tells Marc this is working all right, and they should stay longer.

☽︎

He's writing upstairs in his study, the door half-open, when Marc comes up and knocks. "Hey, Dad. Any chance you'll hit a good breaking point soon? I want to get the twins' self-defense in before I start on dinner."

Elias takes a deep breath...looks at how far he's gotten, looks at the clock...then says, "If you want to go ahead and start now, I promise not to bother you."

He means it when he says it. They've been doing it in the TV room for the thick carpets, so it's downstairs, and fully on the opposite corner of the house. Elias should be able to put it completely out of his mind...

...instead, it turns out, it gives him such anxiety he can hardly think straight.

Layla is working by the living-room window in the sunshine when Elias comes down. She looks up from her laptop and says, kindly but loudly, "Is everything all right?"

"Yes! Yes. Fine," stammers Elias. "Thought maybe I'd...see how this works."

Turns out Marc and the twins have pushed all the furniture off to the side, and scavenged all the cushions off the couch to prop in front of anything that shouldn't be crashed into. That's reassuring.

It's...not actually terrible?

For one thing, self-defense seems to be mostly dodging. Marc throws some punches, but none of them make contact.

And he doesn't seem bothered at all when the boys manage to hit him. Even though they're almost as tall as he is, they're weedy kids, while Marc is strong enough he can still pick them up.

There's some amount of "grabbing anything you can throw and hurling it at your attacker" involved...but that part is practiced with RoRo's old Beanie Babies. Even Elias isn't anxious enough to give himself a panic attack at the sight of Marc being whacked in the face with Goldie the Goldfish.

There's a whole stretch when Marc has Billy over one shoulder and is fending off Tommy with the other arm, unruffled by Billy's fists drumming on his back. Until at last Tommy gets in a good stomp on his foot. Marc goes down, deftly twisting so he doesn't land on top of Billy, who takes the opportunity to flip out of his hold.

(If Marc hadn't gotten Elias worked up with all the talk of hitting, he would've thought this was just a vigorous round of dad-and-kid-style wrestling.)

Tommy tries to pounce. Marc turns it against him, getting him pinned to the carpet instead.

(...maybe it is? Maybe the whole "self-defense" framing is just to make the twins feel like they're filling the time with something useful...?)

Billy, instead of jumping to the rescue, stands back with a huff and says, "When do we get to try this with powers?"

"You gotta practice the no-powers version, brujito," scolds Marc, unflinching as Tommy tries to kick him in the shins. (Leaning into the Hispanic accent, which Elias is starting to hear less as aggressive, more as playful.) "Lotta places where it's safer not to let people...you know. Clock what you are."

Tommy sinks his teeth into Marc's forearm.

Marc yelps some Spanish curse words he did not learn at home or synagogue (while Tommy squirms free), then makes a valiant-but-unconvincing effort to play it casual: "See? Gotta know how to do that."

"Yeah, I get that sometimes we have to hide, Uncle K," says Billy tersely. "But sometimes we won't. So we need to practice that too."

Marc sighs. "Yeah, okay. Gimme a second to reset."

He sits up, catches his breath, and does some stretching. (The boys dutifully copy the stretches.)

"All right, we'll do this one at a time," he says, getting to his feet. Back in the more serious Chicago accent. To Tommy, "Have a seat, kiddo." And to Billy, "Okay, buddy, you're up."

At first they just circle each other, in matching stances: fists up and close, knees bent, one foot forward. Even in the moment while Marc is facing the doorway, he pointedly doesn't acknowledge Elias at all.

He takes a swing. It whiffs in front of Billy's face.

Another. His fist bops Billy lightly on the forehead. 

"You're not trying," says Billy, indignant. "You have to at least try. Or else what am I doing?"

Marc sighs. "And if I knock your teeth out, what -- you're going to telekinetically float them back in?"

"It doesn't have to be the hardest hit you can possibly hit! It just has to be real!"

Marc takes a deep, steadying breath -- in through the nose, out through the mouth.

This time there's no warning before he moves --

He stops short like he punched an invisible wall, arm sparkling with blue up to the elbow, as Billy holds a handful of matching sparkles like a baseball he's about to throw.

Muscles twitch in Marc's face, eyes locked on the kid -- the telekinesis must slip, because Marc's fist jolts forward a couple more inches, then stops again --

Billy throws the pitch.

Marc rears back, socks himself in the face, and hits the carpet with a thump.

Tommy zips over to give his brother a high-five, then they both run to Marc's side to help him up. (Elias, who stopped breathing for a moment there, remembers to start again.)

They're all a little brighter, a little more relaxed, as Marc and Tommy take their turn facing off. Billy perches on the arm of the couch to watch. Tommy hops from foot to foot, making his best tough-guy faces.

"You really don't have to move that much," advises Marc. "Save your energy for--"

Whoosh!

Tommy is on the other side of the room. Marc falls over with a gurgle.

The kid whoops with pride and zips over to Billy -- 

Instead of returning the high-five, Billy's hand flashes blue and stops Tommy mid-run. His wide eyes get wider as he jumps off the couch and goes to Marc.

Marc caught himself with his arms when he went down, but almost immediately sank down to lie flat on his stomach, taking shaky, rattling breaths. His face is ashen and sweaty.

He slowly moves a hand down to touch his side...

He dry-heaves -- then sucks in a hiss of air as something in his torso goes crack --

"Tommy, get Aunt Layla," says Billy -- Layla is whooshed into the room almost before he finishes the sentence --

She looks from Marc to Elias and back, drops to a crouch next to Marc, wipes the sweat from his brow. Looks like she's trying for another silent eye-conversation, but his eyes won't focus.

"What did you even do?" she asks the boys, managing to sound both horrified and impressed. Without waiting for their answer: "Rabbi, get him some water."

It snaps Elias out of the frozen spell he's been in. "Water?" he chokes, over the wet crackle Marc's breathing has turned into. "He needs a doctor--"

(Marc heaves again, is that blood--?)

"Elias!" Layla jabs a finger toward the kitchen. "He will be fine. Water. Go!"

(he's seen Marc laid out on the floor before, Wendy always said he was fine then, too -- well mostly she said he was exaggerating for attention and they shouldn't indulge that -- but the point is that he was fine, he was always--)

And then Elias is at the sink.

(except that one time in the hospital, when the doctor said--)

He spaces out so hard, he doesn't notice the glass is full until the water overflows on his hands. Really -- a senior moment now? This, of all times?

Elias starts the prayer for the sick or injured under his breath, grounding himself with the rhythm and the long familiar chant. "Mi Shebeirach, Avoteinu: Avraham, Yitzhak, v’Yaakov, v’Imoteinu: Sarah, Rivka, Rachel v’Leah, Hu yivarech virapei, et hacholeh Yaakov ben Leah..."

Water. He's bringing Marc water.

He holds the cup in both hands, and manages not to drop it or spill too much on his way back.

Billy is waiting in the doorway. (Did Elias know his eyes were that blue?)

...and on the other side, Marc looks infinitely better. He's sitting up, resting against one of the sideways couch cushions, the color back in his face. Taking slow, deep breaths -- the healthy kind -- nothing gurgling or rattling or snapping at all.

Elias doesn't try to crouch (they don't have time to wait on his knees), he just hands down the cup. Marc takes it without looking up, and gulps half of it in one go.

Layla murmurs "Towels" to Tommy. A blink later Tommy is passing Marc a hand towel, which he sloshes some water over, and uses to wipe the blood off his mouth. 

"Well...lesson learned," he says dryly. "Save that move for people you really don't like."

"It was just supposed to be practice!" cries Tommy -- voice breaking, words spilling out too fast like a sped-up tape. "You said to hit you a bunch, I just did it how you said, I--"

"Hey, shh, c'mere." Marc pats the floor next to him. "It's okay. We're okay."

Tommy zips over. Marc pulls the shivering kid into a one-armed hug.

"We -- everyone's okay," he repeats. "Should've told you to work up to that -- I underestimated you -- and that's on me, got it? Don't even worry about it. I've been through worse."

(He's still not looking at Elias, but oof, that feels pointed.)

Billy takes a silent seat on Marc's other side, and gets pulled in too. He uses the closeness to low-key prod Marc's ribs through his T-shirt...which makes Marc raise his eyebrows, but not flinch.

He really does look so much healthier. Even the bite mark Tommy left on his forearm is gone.

"That's why you're practicing these moves on my husband in the first place," says Layla to the boys. She got a towel of her own at some point, and is quietly blotting up...whatever Marc spit up earlier. "There's not much he can't get up from."

Chapter Text

After the disturbing fight-practice session, Elias insists that Marc take it easy for the rest of the evening. Layla adds something in Arabic that sounds like chiding him to go with it, so Elias takes a chance and says, "Your wife is always right, Marc. Good life advice."

Marc gives him a flat look. "Good advice when it's my wife."

But he lets Billy and Tommy handle putting the furniture back in order, he lets Layla make tea and Elias cook dinner, and he even lets himself relax in front of a ball game in the evening.

There's some quiet mumbling going on when Elias checks in, but it turns out Marc is the only one there. Must be more talking-to-himself, or maybe grousing-about-the-umpire.

Either way, Marc cuts it off with a jump when he notices the company, then eyes Elias's armload of excuses to come in. "Blanket and an ice pack? Really?"

"I didn't know what you'd want," protests Elias. "So I brought you options. You don't like options?"

Marc sighs. "I could go for a blanket."

Elias hands it over. It's the fleece one with the night-sky pattern -- maybe a little warm for this time of year, but it used to be Marc's favorite.

On-screen, someone knocks a ball across the field. Elias takes in the team, the scores..."Is this a Cubs game from September?"

"I didn't catch it in September," says Marc. "Don't spoil me for who wins."

"I won't."

Tentatively, Elias sits on the other end of the couch. Marc doesn't invite him any closer, but doesn't shoo him away, either.

By the time the game cuts to commercial, Elias has worked up enough nerve to say, "Marc?"

"Hm?"

"If you were a mutant, would you tell me?"

Marc's eyes widen in surprise. His face twitches with some number of better-suppressed feelings, then he finally says, "I don't know. Never really thought about it."

Different from the answer he gave about SHIELD. He hasn't thought about it because he isn't one. "If you were a sorcerer...?"

"Are you trying to guess what special skill got me trusted to guard two kids this...powerful?"

"Maybe a little," admits Elias. 

"Please don't."

"...Okay."

"If you're lookin' for a reason to think I got over it this fast when she punched me -- [no such luck.]"

A cold chill runs through Elias. He sets the ice pack on a shelf, and tries to tell himself that fixed it.

The TV cuts back to the game.

"Are you over it now, [really?]" asks Elias. Without really thinking about it, he slides into a level of Spanglish that matches Marc's. "Or are you just being brave [for the boys?]"

"[You don't gotta] -- I'm good, Dad, [really]."

"Because [I know why, with all the secrecy,] you wouldn't want to see a doctor...but, you know, Dr. Mendez just retired last year? [He's very good, very discreet]...if his rabbi calls and asks, I think--"

"I said no." Even Marc's English is coming through with a strong accent now. "How do I get you to [drop this?]"

"I'm just worried! I can't be worried?"

In full Spanish, Marc snaps, "[And what the hell good has your worry ever done for me?]"

Elias shuts up.

(In the game, the batter swings and misses.)

"[You're not thinkin' this through,] anyway," adds Marc, back in a Spanish/English mix. "Your son gets [back in town,] and two days later you're takin' him to get secret checks for internal bleeding and organ damage? People are gonna start wondering [if it was really just Mami Spector beatin' him up for all those years.]"

All right, surely this is going too far.

"[Your mother] wasn't well," says Elias softly.

"Yeah," mutters Marc. "I noticed."

(Another swing, and a miss.)

"She loved you. [Really.]"

"Sure."

"She just...her son died, that would make anyone a little crazy."

"Yeah."

(Winding up another pitch...)

"I know she hurt you. [And that wasn't okay.]"

"Mm."

(...The batter is out. Shots of the crowd cheering, as a new, fan-favorite player steps up to take his place.)

"But she was doing her--"

"Bloody hell, is this how it always goes?" interrupts Marc -- in a British accent, which makes Elias think he's quoting a movie or something, except it keeps going. "One tiny little acknowledgement of the abuse, and we've got to sit through you making excuses for her for the next five minutes? No wonder we've not been back."

Elias stares.

"That's right, you're getting this accent now." Marc pulls the blanket up closer over his shoulders. "Picked it up in England. Along with the vegan-ish diet, and a preference for cricket, and a quite good grasp of Egyptian hieroglyphics -- for all the use that's been lately."

He looks at Elias for a moment, then back to the screen. The changing light flickers in different colors across his face.

"We've been doing all right without talking about it, haven't we?" he asks, more softly. "And we need to keep doing all right. For the twins' sake. So can we go back to not talking about it? Please."

Elias swallows. "I'll try."

He replays the conversation in his head anyway, swapping in different lines from all the things he's ever wanted to say to Marc, wondering if they would've gone any better...

"...You keep saying 'we'."

(The bat connects -- the ball soars through the air -- and the bases are loaded. All the runners start sprinting. The nearly-muted sound explodes with screams from the crowd.)

"You and me," says the man beside him. "Takes two to not talk about a thing."

"Earlier, though." Elias is sure he heard it right. "You said, we've got to sit through...listening to me. You and who else?"

"Oh, that." He huffs a sigh. "Just me and the voices in my head."

"...I wish you wouldn't joke about that, mijo."

"Who's joking?" asks...the man doing the Professor Grant voice. "My brother died, you know. That would make anyone a little crazy."

☽︎

At a completely-unfamiliar library branch on the far side of the city, it takes Elias a while to figure out his way around. But he finally makes it through the kids/young-adult section, checking off most of his updated list of books.

Tommy wants more Dragon Ball. Billy wants more Sailor Moon. They're both eager for the next installments of Percy Jackson and Animorphs. 

And nobody stops him to say "ah, Rabbi, funny seeing you here!", so he calls that an op-sec success.

When he's pretty sure he has everything, Elias starts towards the checkout...then works up his nerve, and turns for the info desk instead. 

"Excuse me," he says, to a librarian who has bright pink hair, and does not look old enough to have as many tattoos as she does. (Not that Elias is judging.) "Can you tell me where to find books on, ah -- multiple personalities?"

The young lady taps a key to wake her computer. "Like, characters with multiple personalities, or 'real' multiple personalities?"

It gets a nervous chuckle out of Elias. "I was hoping for real without the scare quotes."

"Well, it's not that." She's typing in the search, but apparently this needs a running commentary. "If you know a teenager who's telling you they have a bunch of anime characters in their head, you should be looking for stuff about roleplaying."

Elias used to know a teenager who claimed to be a TV character, who everyone thought was roleplaying. Now he knows an adult who's avoided him for decades, who still has the "character" accent and will casually switch into it around some people, but gets tense and uncomfortable if it slips out when Elias is in the room.

He doesn't know whether Marc would want him to say any of that. (Especially since there's still a non-zero chance someone will recognize Elias after all, and come up to say hello while he's talking.)

He ends up saying nothing.

"Okay, second floor, you're looking for the psych aisle..." The librarian scribbles a number on a slip of paper, and hands it across the desk to him. "...under RC 569.5, with the other child-abuse stuff."

"Thank you," says Elias politely, and goes.

☽︎

Billy and Tommy cart their own haul of reading material up to their (Randall's) (their?) room. Marc and Layla are in Marc's room...with the door closed, and whatever they're doing, Elias certainly won't interrupt.

He thinks about all different possible ways to bring up his new reading list...how to sound open and accepting if this is what's going on, but not come off as presumptuous and melodramatic if it isn't...

What he settles on is "conspicuously lining up the books on the living-room coffee table, sitting in his favorite armchair to read one, and hoping Marc makes the first move."

He ends up so absorbed in the writing that, when Marc comes down the stairs and barely nods at Elias on his way past, Elias barely nods back.

It's Tommy who breaks the ice. He zips up out of nowhere to inspect the books -- probably finished all of his own, the kid is a speed-reading demon. There's a rustle that Elias thinks is Tommy having a closer look at each one. (It goes by too fast to be sure.)

Then the kid is gone, and there's a low, urgent conversation happening in the kitchen.

Elias finds himself staring blankly at the latest page. The words fall out of focus. Is it cold in here? He's suddenly cold again...

A brief rush of water from the sink, then Marc comes out into the living room, wiping his hands dry on the end of his shirt.

He crouches next to the coffee table. Does a normal-human-speed check on the cover of each book. When he looks at the one in Elias's hands, Elias obligingly tilts it up so he can read the title and author.

"Good place to start," says Marc. "Only one you have that's recent enough to...if you're trying to learn the up-to-date medical terms, learn from there."

He takes a book from the middle of the pile, and pushes it off to the side.

"This one's garbage. Written by a 'therapist' who was actively abusing his patient while he wrote it. Anything he gets right is by accident."

Pointing to each of the other three:

"These are all good, just kinda old-fashioned. This one's -- weird. I'm not saying it's fake, go ahead and trust the author about their own experiences, just...don't expect it to shed a ton of light on how anyone else works. And this one, there's a lot of, ah..." His eyes fall out of focus. "...graphic descriptions of abuse. Didn't read those parts, can't comment on them. The rest is solid."

"You put the garbage one by the door, I'll take it back. I won't even read it," promises Elias.

With a nod, Marc swipes it off the table.

"Should I look for...if I get more, is there some particular book that's most like...?"

He can't quite finish the sentence. Which is fitting, because it looks like Marc can't quite manage to answer...

Then Marc shakes himself and sits up straighter. "So, uh. What's happening right now is -- I didn't read these at all -- Steven did. Mentally, he's leaning over my shoulder right now, and I'm just passing on what he says. But that question -- that's not a thing he can answer on his own. We'd have to talk about it as a group."

"Oh," says Elias faintly.

"If we come up with any recommendations...I'll let you know."

"I'd like that."

Marc nods...gets to his feet...then calls toward the kitchen, "All right, it's out, none of you have to talk around the switching anymore!"

Three heads pop out from around the corner: Tommy, Billy, Layla. "Oh, thank goodness," breathes Layla. "I wasn't going to be able to keep up calling Steven 'Marc' for much longer."

☽︎

Whatever big dramatic earth-shaking change Elias was expecting this reveal to cause...it doesn't happen. Dinner conversation goes the same as ever. No conspicuous switching of accents, no point when anyone starts addressing Marc as...not Marc.

Same with the boys' evening chores. (Telekinetic sweeping for Billy, speed-scrubbing for Tommy.)

And with the next "family movie" they put on as a reward. (In deference to the twins' ongoing fascination with the '90s: Space Jam. Layla lasts about fifteen minutes before declaring that's "all the American" she can take for one night.)

There's a point when Tommy pauses in his zipping around to address "Uncle K," and Elias cautiously asks if that's someone new. But no: "There's a name we tell people to call us if you're talking to the whole group, or if you're just not sure who's in front. Starts with a K. Don't worry about it, you can keep just saying Marc."

☽︎

No big changes the next day, either.

Elias does another lesson for the twins' ad-hoc substitute Hebrew school. He finally makes some phone calls he's been putting off. He reads a few chapters of the next book.

(Only a few. He had all sorts of nightmares last night, unsubtly inspired by every bad scene from binge-reading the first one.)

He overhears a bit of Marc "talking to himself" while getting the laundry in the basement, but it stops when Marc comes back up.

☽︎

When he gets up the nerve to mention it again, they're both in the kitchen. A bulb went out in the ceiling light, so Elias got a new one to change it, then Marc took over: "You want me to sit around and watch while my aging father stands on a chair to fiddle with a lamp? What if you fall and break your hip, huh, how's that gonna make me feel?"

So Marc is on the chair screwing in the new bulb, when Elias, watching from the table, stammers, "Is it good if I'm not hearing from Steven?"

"...what?"

"He takes over when you're...upset, right? So, whenever he isn't talking to me, that means I haven't upset you. And that's good?"

Marc finishes on the light without answering.

All right, maybe Elias isn't supposed to talk about this either...

"If I need to tap out, then yeah, someone else will tap in." Marc hops down off the chair, and pushes it into place under the table. "Sometimes we switch for other reasons. Steven's been doing the cooking. There are certain...work things...that he's best at. We all like Layla -- not all married to her, but we all care about her -- so we try to make sure everyone gets their fair share of Layla time."

"Oh."

Elias swallows. He should like "all of Marc" too, right? And who can do that, without trying to get to know the rest of...them?

"Can I ask -- how many is 'everyone'?"

(The "good, but weird" memoir was written by a system of three. The one he's planning to open next, the back cover says it's by a group that has thousands of people in one head. Admittedly, Elias isn't sure how far to trust that last one -- how would you even count them?)

"Well. More than two." Marc leans on the back of the chair. "Some of them don't want to talk to you. You can't be pushy about that. We're all going to get upset if you push it."

"O-of course."

"Steven says he's good with it, though. And, listen, don't try to make us switch if we're not offering -- but right now, this is an offer. You want to bring Steven out here?"

"If he's willing? -- Yes. Please."

"All right. Then I'll tell you...the secret."

Oh dear, that sounds ominous. Maybe Elias isn't ready for--

Marc nods at the TV room. "We go in there...we figure out how to make it stream a game of cricket...and once you've seen enough to get good and confused, you ask what the hell is even going on. Then, wham, Steven will pop up, and explain everything you never wanted to know about cricket. Guaranteed."

He tilts his head the other way, grimaces--

"It is not that complicated, he's just saying that to tease me," says Steven. Instant and seamless. If they were doing this on a call, Elias could have believed he just grabbed Marc's phone to jump in, not Marc's...body. "You like baseball, it's not that far off from baseball, bet you pick it up in five minutes."

☽︎

Of course, they get things working better in one area, something else has to collapse.

Elias gets home after a dinner meeting to the usual dark house...but as he climbs the steps, he starts to hear -- screaming? Crying? Nothing good.

(muffled sobbing through a door means Marc and/or Wendy wants to be left alone, they've both thrown things at him when he tried to go in--)

It all goes ominously quiet as he rattles the key in the lock. He remembers to step inside quick and close the door right away, to see...

The living room looks like a bomb went off. Furniture all knocked against different walls, a starburst of soot across the floor, four panting figures huddled in the middle of what's left of the carpet. Marc is holding Tommy, Layla has her arms around Billy, both boys are red in the face, eyes swollen--

"Welcome home, Rabbi," pants Layla, remarkably casual for someone so breathless. "Was any of that visible from the outside?"

"Visible -- no," stutters Elias. "I could hear -- I assume the boys -- but only from very close -- what even--?"

Tommy seizes on the distraction to twist out of Marc's grip. He and Billy grab each other, and they both whoosh up the stairs out of sight.

Marc rolls up in a tight ball, knees against his chest, both hands pulling roughly at his disheveled curls. Layla does the opposite, sprawling on the floor with an exhausted groan. "So sorry about this. We'll make sure it gets cleaned."

"Who's thinking about cleaning?" Elias crosses the room as quickly as he can manage, and sits next to them, one knee-bend at a time. "Are the boys okay? Are you okay? Did someone come for them? What happened?"

"Nobody came. We're okay. They're...okay."

Is there more...?

Okay, clearly they need a minute or five to catch their breaths.

Elias looks toward the boys' room and, not knowing exactly what the danger is, starts into the most all-encompassing protection prayer he has. "Hashkiveinu, Adonai Eloheinu l’shalom v’ha’amideinu malkeinu l’chai’im. Ufros aleinu sukat shlomeicha, v’tak’neinu b’eitzah tovah milfaneicha v’hoshienu l’ma’an shmeicha..."

It's grounding. Elias feels much steadier by the time he gets to the end. (Marc has calmed down too -- or at least, he's stopped trying to rip his hair out -- maybe it's wishful thinking, but Elias hopes he helped at least a little.)

"I think," says Layla at last, voice wobbling, "everything just hit them all at once. Being cooped up in here. Not being able to help their mom. One started spiraling...the other picked it up...by the end, meltdown."

"Billy and Tommy can do all this..." Elias waves vaguely at the chaos around them, then coughs on the dust it stirs up. "...and still, their mother is in such trouble, it won't help?"

"Even if it could," snaps Marc (if it's still Marc when he leans into the Spanish accent?), "they're fuckin' kids."

"Little powerhouse kids. But still kids." Layla's voice is going dreamy with exhaustion. "Even the X-Men don't recruit this young. ...I don't think."

"In a few years, every super-team is gonna be fightin' over them like top draft picks," finishes maybe-Marc. "X-Men, Avengers, Thunderbolts, Kamar-Taj, goddamn Alpha Flight will take a crack if they can get it. But not yet."

Elias nods.

He looks around the room again. Everything except the rug looks...salvageable. And yet..."Can this really be the safest place for them?"

"Can't handle these boys either, huh," mutters maybe-Marc.

Elias tenses. "That's not fair, mijo. You want I should wait until the house comes down around our ears? Just to prove a point to you?"

Layla flings an arm over her eyes. "If you're kicking us out, can it please wait for morning?"

"I don't want you to go! I don't! I also don't want to put those boys in needless danger, just because I want to spend more time with--!"

Elias breaks off, choked up. It's so sooty in here. Even getting in his eyes.

Marc unwinds a bit from his huddle, and says in British: "I understand why you're worried. I do. This is a lot."

"Steven...?"

Steven untangles one hand from his hair to give Elias a little wave. "Hi."

He coughs on the dust. Shakes himself.

"This is -- it's not -- not quite as rough as it looks. We have got...safety measures, in place...that we've not actually told you about."

"If the twins sneak out while your backs are turned." Elias has some experience with how fast a resourceful twelve-year-old can make himself scarce. "If they're climbing out a window, right this minute. You have measures for that?"

"Yes, actually."

"And you think Tommy can't speed right past whatever SHIELD tech you use for this?"

"He tried it on our fourth night here," says Steven mildly.

"...really?"

"Not to ditch us, I don't think. Not that time. Just pushing the boundaries, testing if he could get around our...measures. He could not."

"Got our best hippo on it," mumbles Layla. Must be so sleepy, she's half-dreaming already. 

"All right. All right -- but still," presses Elias. "You're sure all your measures aren't better than what they have at -- oh, somewhere with mutant specialists? I hear they have wonderful support programs at the Xavier Institute--"

It's the wrong thing to say. Steven winces. Layla breaks into a burst of hysterical giggles.

A horrible thought hits Elias. He's been fully assuming the boys' mother was in danger from some sort of villain, but what if... "Are you hiding them from the Xavier Institute?"

That gets a loopy grin out of Steven. "Not seen the news today, have you?"

☽︎

Layla sets her laptop up on the kitchen table, then shuffles over to the counter, probably to make herself something caffeinated. Elias pulls his chair over to watch as Steven finds the news clip.

He doesn't have to search far. It's on the front page of YouTube. 

"Dramatic showdown at the Xavier Institute earlier today," says the woman at the news desk, before cutting to shaky footage that was filmed from high above. News crew in a helicopter, or a solo streamer with flight powers? "The entity presenting herself as Wanda Maximoff arrived and demanded entry. Students and staff initially attempted to hold her off, without success."

On the grassy field below, a crowd of tiny figures is getting absolutely trounced by a single figure in red. She shrugs off a bombardment from all the elements, plus magic in every color of the rainbow, and with the slightest gesture throws them around like rag dolls.

"Maximoff was last in the news for the Westview Anomaly, a psychic fugue state which encompassed a New Jersey town," narrates the reporter. "Most experts agree that she is not experiencing a similar state now, but is in fact possessed."

All at once the scarlet lights go dim -- most of the mutants fall back -- and not-Wanda's attention turns to a new woman directly between her and the mansion, powers shimmering white.

"The figure in white has been identified as Emma Frost, current interim headmistress of the Institute."

Behind Frost...the doors of the mansion swing open.

"Although the possessing entity appears to have full access to Maximoff's powers, the official statement from the Institute says Frost, a high-level telepath, was able to block them..."

Not-Wanda freezes, obviously suspicious. An impatient Frost gestures her forward.

"...and was acting on her own free will when she invited Maximoff to search the premises."

The Scarlet Witch aura blazes back to life, and Not-Wanda launches herself like a rocket into the building.

Jump-cut to her reappearance on the front steps. There's a furious explosion of power -- no particular target, it doesn't hit anyone, it just leaves a smoking crater where the stairs used to be -- and she leaps into the air. 

Flying directly towards the camera.

As her face comes into focus, Elias can't help but flinch back from the screen. That woman is clearly possessed. Nobody in the world could look more possessed than she does.

"To everyone watching this." She sounds possessed, too. "I don't want to hurt anyone. I just want my boys. Any one of you could end this. If you tell me where Billy and Tommy are hidden, nobody else has to get hurt."

Cutting back to the newsroom. "Next up, our experts debate: Is it irresponsible not to give up these--"

Steven hits the spacebar, and the video mercifully pauses before the end of that sentence.

Elias feels his world spinning. "That's their mom?"

"No!"

The twins are in the doorway again, with dry eyes and stormy expressions.

"That," says Billy furiously, over the crackle of Wanda's-power-but-in-blue swirling around his hands, "is not our mom."

Chapter Text

Elias is pacing circles in the grass of his back yard. He couldn't stay inside. He needs air.

...After what he just found out, the amount of air he needs? The whole outdoors might not have enough of it.

He's too worked-up to be bothered by the chill right away, but it's just starting to sink in when the back door opens, and Marc (?) steps out. Wearing his own coat, holding Elias's over one arm.

Elias feels his already-shaky heart rate jump even worse. "You're supposed to stay inside!"

"We're using protection," deadpans Steven.

In a funny coincidence, right that moment, a fast-moving cloud bank scuds over the moon. The yard is plunged into...as much darkness as this neighborhood ever gets, barring an actual power outage.

"...also, gosh, Marc's memories were spot-on here, huh? No worries about getting spied on by random neighbors, not with a fence that tall."

He walks over to offer Elias the coat, and, once Elias has shrugged it on, follows it up with a half-empty glass of water.

"Here. Stay hydrated."

Elias isn't sure he can drink and pace at the same time, so he sits heavily at the long-unused picnic table. (His housekeeping service didn't include the grounds; the outdoor furniture is coated in a thin layer of grime. Oh well.)

Steven sits on the other end of the bench, and supervises while Elias gets some water in him. "Care for a Xanax to go with that?"

Elias looks blankly at him. "...I don't think any pharmacy is open this late?"

"Probably not," agrees Steven. "Would you like one of ours?"

Why the hell not, at this point? "Yes please."

Steven slips a half-used pack out of his inside coat pocket. "Had one ourselves already," he explains, tearing the foil on a new pill. "Lucky we got them refilled right before we went on the run. Marc should be back once it kicks in."

He and Elias can find out how long that takes together, huh.

"Those...are the Scarlet Witch's children?" asks Elias at last. It's a panicky squeak, but he's not full-on hyperventilating about it, so, progress.

"Yeah."

"Someone who can possess her... is trying to get them?"

It's still Steven who sighs. "Yeah."

"How can this possibly be the best place to hide them? She's breaking into fortresses -- she's fighting with the world's mightiest heroes -- this is just a house! I'm nobody!"

"Right now, that's not a bug, that's a feature," says Steven. "She's checking all the fortresses. She isn't even thinking to pop down every normal street and check all the houses. And there's no special reason she'd check yours. You're not a mutant -- you're not on file with the X-Men. Not a sorcerer -- you're not on the Kamar-Taj alumni mailing list. Never been an Avenger -- you're not in Nick Fury's database. She could maybe find you through Marc, but he's not any of those things either, remember? Nor is Layla, for the record."

"You are something, though," says Elias. "Right? The boys wouldn't have ended up with you if you weren't...something."

"...Yeah."

"Something you don't want me even asking about."

"The less you know, the less anyone has a chance of mind-reading out of you later. It's pretty good, though, promise." Steven pauses. "And, well. The thing Marc said back on the first day was true. Wanda's a friend."

"How does my son make friends with Wanda Maximoff?"

"...would you believe we met at Ben Grimm's Hanukkah party?"

As if this night hasn't been shocking enough. "You get invited to Ben Grimm's parties?!"

"Jen Walters helped us with a legal thing, her and Grimm are in the same fight club -- look, it's a long story," says Steven modestly. "Wanda being Wanda, she saw straight away there were extra people in our head. She figured it meant we were possessed..."

(one time Wendy started talking about how Marc was a monster who only looked like her son, and then she--)

"It's fine, I promise, please don't make that face! We probably set a world record for the fastest psychic explanation of how DID works, and she did not wipe the floor with us."

Elias kneads his temples. It's too much. Who can absorb this much at once? Not him.

The man beside him puts a tentative hand on his shoulder. (It's nice.)

"Dad...if you're not up for this, I get it." Marc's normal voice is back. "If there's any chance you're going to give the twins up -- even by accident, in a moment of panic -- just be honest. We have another hideout lined up by now. Not going to tell you specifics about that either...but whenever we need it, it's ready."

"It's not safer than here, though, right?" asks Elias weakly. "Or you'd have taken them already."

"Oh, it's safe," sighs Marc. "It's just..."

A sliver of moon peeks out through the clouds. Marc gazes up at it, the light glinting off his eyes.

"Well, there's no local libraries," he says at last. "Nobody who can help them with Hebrew 101. Definitely no pizza delivery. Terrible food in general. I haven't checked the TV reception...but I'm not optimistic."

Some abandoned mercenary outpost in the middle of the desert, probably. "So, they'd be miserable."

"Yeah."

Marc gets to his feet, and offers Elias a hand up.

"Come inside, okay? You can sleep on it. You can decide in the morning. Right now, just...come back in."

☽︎

They find Billy and Tommy cleaning up the living room, while Layla supervises from an armchair over a cup of coffee. The furniture is more-or-less back in place. Tommy is holding the mouth of a garbage bag, while Billy gestures a stream of blue-glowing dust and detritus to flow into it.

Even with the magic, it's a quiet, subdued process. Both boys wince guiltily as Marc ushers Elias in.

"It's okay, guys," says Marc. "We're good. Dad, can you reassure them, can you tell them face-to-face that you still have their backs?"

"I do," says Elias. "It's all right, I'm not mad about the house. I am...pretty scared, about what's happening with your mother, but..."

He trails off. Billy's eyes are blue again.

Your powers aren't just about floating things, are they?

Billy looks miserably at Marc, over the top of a levitating lump of soot. "He's onto me."

"I won't tell anyone where you are," says Elias. "If this place isn't safe for you anymore, I'll tell Marc right away, he can take you somewhere that is. I promise."

Mentally, he adds, How much have you been secretly reading my mind?

"I'm not!" protests Billy. "I can't tell specific thoughts unless you're thinking right at me! It's so loud, there's too many people here and none of them know how to shield, it's all just noise -- Mom was teaching me to focus, but--!"

"Over here," says Layla.

The soot drops with a flumpf as Billy goes to her. She puts a hand on his forehead, and murmurs something comforting in Arabic as he leans into it.

"Okay, kids, that's enough cleaning-up for tonight," announces Marc. "You've done great so far, we all appreciate it, we'll help you finish up the rest in the morning, okay? Time for bed now."

Tommy lets go of the trash bag and whooshes up the stairs. He doesn't carry his brother this time; Billy just steps into the air, glows full-body blue, and soars gracefully after him.

He's growing into all the Scarlet Witch powers -- taking after his mother. And their uncle is Quicksilver, an incredible speedster -- Tommy takes after him. And their grandfather...

"...I am hosting Magneto's grandchildren," realizes Elias out loud. "If I ever did give them up, he would murder me. If he finds out about all this and decides I haven't done enough to keep them safe, he might murder me anyway."

Marc puts an arm around his shoulders. "You've opened your home to be a secret hideout for the family of a Shoah survivor. No matter how this goes, he's probably gonna declare you Righteous Among The Non-Mutants, and if he ever manages to build that mutant-supremacist dictatorship, you'll get special exemptions."

☽︎

Next day, Elias was supposed to go down to the synagogue.

If it was for the service, he probably would have pushed himself, shoving everything else aside until it was over.

Not because he doesn't trust his backup, mind you. (Arnie Sanders has been full-time assistant rabbi for more than a year now, and everyone says he does lovely sermons. Even the week he was a last-possible-minute fill-in, because the Zodiac virus was going around, and Elias called in sick with it on Saturday morning.)

The thing is, when Elias is stressed and at loose ends like this? All the nice safe rituals reliably make him feel better.

But it's Wednesday.

So he calls in and tells his secretary he's unwell. Promises to answer some emails if he can, but please have Rabbi Sanders cover his consulting appointments, and cancel his general office hours.

In the name of keeping that promise, he opens the email program on his display. For all the good it does.

(Who can focus on email? The top message is about choosing a vendor for the synagogue roof repair. He's sheltering two children from a psychic monster who throws X-Men around like toys, and he should think about roofing?)

The one thing Elias can focus on, it turns out, is reading articles about Wanda Maximoff. Then about the Westview Anomaly.

...There are so many rumors about what happened in there. Each one more bizarre than the last.

Avengers training exercise gone wrong?

Time warp that snapped decades into the past, then sped forward until it caught up?

Whole town kidnapped to a pocket dimension, where every action was recorded for an alien dictator's personal sitcom?

At least people agree on how it ended: Charles Xavier led a team of psychic mutants, including at least one licensed therapist, to join the SWORD operation monitoring Westview. They got in touch with Wanda through the barriers, broke whatever spell she was under, and helped her take it down.

When it was over, she came out of the Anomaly with two more children than she had when she went in.

And those were Billy and Tommy.

Was there really some sort of time travel involved? It would certainly explain the twins' interests if they lived their first decade or so in the nineties, only to get caught up in the Anomaly as it passed through...

Elias needs to sit down.

...He's already sitting.

Okay, so he needs to lie down.

No easy feat -- his study at home is even messier than his office at the synagogue -- but he finds a way. (It involves his feet almost kicking a file cabinet, and his head almost pillowed on a cluster of cables.)

Of course, right when he's comfortable, there's a knock on the door. "Dad? You in there?"

"I'm here, I'm here."

"Are you on the -- I'm coming in." Marc does. He's wearing the fancy collared shirt and nice dark pants from the day he arrived, though the nice suit jacket is somewhere else. "Did you fall?"

"Did I fall, he says," echoes Elias. The little lights on the internet machine blink cheerfully next to his head. "A man can't lie on the floor in his own house these days?"

Marc scans the room around them...and freezes with a sharp breath when he turns to the desk.

The fancy holo-display should have switched off from inactivity by now, so why...

Oh. "You can move those," says Elias. "If you like."

Marc doesn't even hesitate before tipping both photos over, setting the frames flat on the desk face-down. First the wedding photo, then the family portrait with both him and RoRo.

He backs out of the room just long enough to call down the stairs, "Might be a while, babe, just go, I'll catch up!" Then he shoves a few boxes closer together, freeing up a spot to sit next to Elias on the floor.

"I'm all right, I'm all right," protests Elias. "You can go ahead with...whatever it is."

"Sneaking the twins out to the woods for some running-around time."

Elias gives Marc's outfit a fresh look. "You're wearing your nice temple suit to the woods?"

"Only clean pants I have left. And I didn't want to make the boys wait on laundry." Marc thumbs one of his unbuttoned cuffs, makes a move like he's trying to button it one-handed, then rolls the fabric up instead. "Probably should've let them stretch their legs earlier. I...guess I thought Wanda would've fought this off by now."

"I was reading about her last thing." Elias waves toward the computer. "Charles Xavier got her out of that. Or helped her get herself out of it, maybe. He can't help her out of this?"

"He's supposed to be on a mission right now. I think it's in space."

"For this, he can't come back from space?"

Marc rolls up the other shirt cuff. "Dad, if you think I have a seat at the table in Professor X's planning sessions, I've given you a seriously wrong impression."

Elias did sort of think Marc might be at that table, yes.

"Steven figures Doctor Strange is working on a backup plan," adds Marc, sitting back against the boxes. "But -- don't know if you've noticed -- that guy's plans tend to come with horrible unforeseen consequences. So let's hope it doesn't come to that."

"Does Steven do the superhero research for you, then?" ventures Elias. "Along with the...mental health research?"

Marc starts -- and then it's Steven who answers. "Yeah, actually. Well spotted."

"Is that part of being Professor Grant?"

"Maybe. Don't know. Can you...can you not call me that, please? I know I'm not actually...never even been to uni, really," stammers Steven. "Normally I'm not bothered about it, but...Steven. Just call me Steven."

"Oh! Of course."

Steven sighs. "Sort of wanted to do personal research, while we're here. Look at records, yearbooks, old photo albums, whatever you've got. Ask questions about things we don't remember...or at least, that I don't remember. But the others are having a hard enough time of it as-is. Don't want to step in something that makes it worse."

Elias has questions too. But so many of them walk straight into the territory he agreed he wouldn't talk about.

He settles for, "You could take photos and such with you, when you go? If that would be easier. To look at them somewhere else."

A pause.

"Best not take anything while we're still in hiding," says Steven after a beat. "That's just asking to lose it. Thank you, though."

It's a refusal, but it's far from no, not doing that ever, and Elias clings to the glimmer of hope. "Will you come back and visit afterwards?"

Steven chews on his lip in silence.

"You don't have to stay at the house, if that's...hard," adds Elias quickly. "I can get you a hotel room? Maybe a nice AirBnB?"

Steven sucks in a sharp breath, then lets it out slowly. "We would cover our own hotel. If we did that. Can't promise we will."

"You all have to talk about it together?" guesses Elias.

"Something like that." A dry laugh. "Here's a sneak peek behind the scenes, if you like: someone in here is having a very strong feeling of 'just agree with whatever he says, or you'll get the boys in trouble, and they didn't do anything wrong.' Not sure if they're thinking clearly about Billy and Tommy...or if that's a much older feeling, from someone who's not fully caught up to the present."

That hardly sounds fair. Elias would never put the twins in danger for -- what, some sort of blackmail leverage over his son?

And even when Marc was little, he didn't get in trouble for disagreeing with Elias.

(although one time he did make the mistake of complaining to Wendy after Marc was acting out, and she--)

Elias flinches and yelps as a strange hand touches his face.

"Whoa! Dad, it's just me," exclaims Marc, now leaning over him. "You back with us?"

"Back? I didn't go anywhere."

"You spaced out really bad for a minute there. Stopped responding to anything. I thought -- you could've been having a stroke."

"So dramatic," protests Elias. "So I have little senior moments sometimes. It's nothing."

"How much is sometimes?" asks Marc, as Elias gets up off the carpet. (If he's going to insist on his good health, he should probably demonstrate enough stamina to sit up straight, huh.) "Have you talked to a doctor about it?"

"And what do you expect a doctor to say? Ah, Rabbi Spector, I diagnose you with being over sixty-five. So sorry, it's incurable."

"Dad, I'm serious."

"So am I!"

Elias bites back the urge to add, maybe if any of them had visited once in a while, they wouldn't be so surprised to see their father got old. So they didn't visit, and now he's old -- what can they do about that now, hm?

Marc looks like there's something he's wrestling with not saying, too.

What he finally comes out with is, "Would you be offended if I said a -- a blessing, basically -- for you? Not a Jewish one, I mean."

Elias raises an eyebrow. "So now you're not Jewish?"

"Didn't say that." Marc grimaces. "Look, you travel a lot, you meet all different people...you pick up new things, okay? This would be one from Layla's culture. And it's...meaningful. To me." He touches the side of his head. "To all of us in here, honestly."

The sort of blessing Layla said for Billy the other night, maybe? Seemed like it worked well enough for him. "If it's important to you. And if you promise it's not a passive-aggressive Christian thing."

That gets a wry smile out of Marc. "I can safely say Christ has never been anywhere near this."

He rests his palm on Elias's forehead, fingertips poking into Elias's mess of curls.

And he chants...words in a language Elias doesn't recognize. Might be Arabic. Might be something older.

It doesn't make Elias feel any different at the end. But if it makes Marc feel better, he's good with that.

☽︎

The running-around expedition is a great success. Layla orders the twins into a pair of showers as soon as they get back. They're freshly-dressed and damp-haired when they sit down in the living room with Elias and a couple of prayer books for Hebrew learners.

Now that Elias knows a little more about their heritage, he's started looking for ways to bring it in, and was fortunate enough to find a lovely recording of Ashrei, to a traditional melody, by a Sokovian Jewish performer. He plays it on his phone while they follow along with the verses on the page.

"Ashrei yoshvei veitekha, ode yehalelukha selah..."

Upstairs, the water for Layla's shower goes on...then cuts off. Elias barely registers how fast it was, until she leans out the door and calls down the stairs, "Marc?"

Marc appears out of the kitchen. "Here, babe!"

"Can you bring me my tablet, please?"

"Dor l’dor yishabakh ma’asekha, u’gevurotekha yagidu..."

Marc finds it and heads up, taking the steps two at a time.

The boys watch after him -- Billy tense, Tommy extra-fidgety, both of them fully losing their place in the books. Elias decides not to scold them back to attention right away. This might be about them, after all.

"Someikh Adonai l’khol ha-noflim, v’zokeif l’khol ha-kefufim..."

...Out of nowhere, Billy starts heaving for breath. Like he just came up from a long dive -- or like he's having an asthma attack.

"Whoa, hey there, easy, brujito," soothes Elias. (Oy, now Marc's got him doing the nicknames.) (Should he pat the kid's back, or...?) To Tommy: "Does he have an inhaler--?"

"Nah." Tommy kicks his heels. "Bet he just tried to look in Uncle K's head again."

It turns out Billy isn't hyperventilating too hard to smack his brother. Tommy gamely swats back. So they're probably okay?

"R’tzon y’rei’av ya’aseh, v’et shavatam yishma v’yoshi’em..."

(if it's normal that Billy can't breathe after snooping in Marc's head, is that some kind of psychic block Marc learned, or does Marc always feel like he--)

Everyone is breathing more-or-less normally when the couple comes back down: Marc still holding the tablet, Layla hastily-dressed and wringing out her curls with a towel. The chant comes to an end with a resounding "Va’anakhnu nevareikh ya, mei’ata v’ad olam, haleluyah!"

"Get some food, kids," orders Marc. "You might need it."

Tommy zips away and reappears with a box of granola bars. He lets Billy have first pick, then speed-eats two more.

"This might be our cue, it might not," adds Layla. "Just in case, Tommy--"

Whoosh! "Ready," calls Tommy from the front door, now standing next to a neat row of four suitcases.

"Good. Perfect. C'mere," says Marc. Tommy zips back to the couch, so he can also study the tablet screen as Marc shows Billy and Elias a YouTube video. "Any chance any of you recognize the...visitor?"

It's footage from a handheld phone, aiming through the window of a car, apparently on a bridge. Has a great, if jittery, view of the New York City skyline.

Something huge is rolling toward it. Like a building-sized predator made entirely of dark angry clouds -- sparking with unnatural red lightning -- prowling across the bay towards the lights. Terrifying and poetic all at once -- very some rough beast slouching toward Manhattan.

Billy makes a face. "Looks demon-y."

"Okay, but that's New York," says Tommy. "Every bad guy and magic monster goes after New York. It's like a rule or something."

"It's not attacking," says Layla ominously. "It's doing recon."

"Our source says there's at least five," adds Marc. "This one was filmed in NYC within the past hour, now it's up near Boston. Another one veered through Pennsylvania, just passed over Cleveland."

Elias pictures a map of the US, and rolls both paths backward until they connect. Would have to be somewhere near..."Did they start in New Jersey?"

"Gold star for the rabbi," says...probably not Marc. "Summoned in Westview, yeah. A little bird tells us it's got your scent."

Tommy looks indignant. "We just showered."

Billy gives him a sideways kick. "Magic scent, dummy."

Elias cuts to the point: "How long until one of them gets to Chicago?"

"If we're lucky, forty minutes," says Layla. "If we're not? Twenty."

"Then -- this is it." Elias levers himself out of his chair. "Boys, you can take the books, we'll just say they got lost and pay to replace them. Marc..."

What can he say? I love you, I missed you, I'll miss you again, of course you have to go, I don't want you to go.

He takes a step forward. At least they can have a hug.

...Marc takes a step back, holds up a hand for quiet, and looks out the nearest window.

Layla and Billy look in that direction too. If there's anything to look at besides the scenery, Elias can't tell. Seems like Tommy can't either; he catches Elias's eye, shrugs, and focuses on speed-finishing the granola bars.

The scenery does make a lovely picture, at least. Sun is setting, and it's one of those evenings where a faint moon hangs low in the red-violet sky, a silver ghost just above the tree line.

"You sure about that?" The Spanish accent is back. "You real goddamn sure, jefe? Because if you fuck this up -- you lose all of us. No tricks this time. No loopholes. You go all the way back to zero nights, and good luck startin' over."

Pause.

"Yeah, you better."

Pause.

He turns to Elias. "Okay, update: there's a fun little hat trick we can pull to keep the boys hidden. Can't keep it up forever, but it should hold long enough for los demonios to roll through, come up empty, and vàmonos."

Then, switching to full Spanish: "[If you're really up for it, we'll try this. If you don't wanna take the risk, or if you're lookin' for an excuse to get us outta here...say the word and we'll ditch.]"

(if Elias tries to do the safe thing that doesn't put himself on the line, Marc will walk away--)

Elias answers in Spanish too: "[Please stay.]"

A brisk nod.

Back in English: "Everyone -- up the stairs. Normal speed, rapidito. Everyone else -- hustle."

Chapter Text

"Is your bedroom extra-warded?" asks Billy, as Marc leads them upward: the twins at his heels, Elias right below, Layla acting as rear guard.

"It's extra-symbolic. Got the best history of defendin' ourselves in there," says Marc. "Also: we are traveling up the stairs."

For no reason Elias can figure out, this gets an incredulous snort from Tommy: "That counts?"

"It does now." Marc smirks. "Fun thing you'll get around to in Knockoff Hebrew School at some point: gods are the worst fuckin' rules lawyers."

"Language," says Elias automatically.

Marc repeats the phrase in Spanish. With even more colorful curses in translation. (Playful, or aggressive? Maybe that one's both.)

He ushers them into his bedroom, sizes it up -- it looks like a guest room once more, Tommy scooped up all the laundry and personal belongings when he speed-packed their luggage, nothing but rumpled bedsheets to betray that someone's been sleeping here -- and pulls back the accordion doors of the closet. There's not much inside. Short stack of boxes. Bar with a half-dozen empty hangers.

"Yeah, okay." Marc, back to the all-business American accent, waves them forward. "Line up in here."

Layla, still watching updates on her tablet as she pulls the door closed, looks up from the screen to frown at the tiny space. "You think we'll all fit?"

"Just the four of you. Move this other junk, sit hip-to-hip, you can squeeze in."

Every box on the closet floor glows blue. Billy yanks the whole pile out at once, slamming it against the foot of the bed. (Elias doesn't even remember what he was keeping in those boxes. Hopefully it wasn't fragile.)

"A tight fit can be cozy sometimes, yeah?" adds Steven, distinctively British, as Layla takes the end of the closet nearest the external wall. "I used to play tomb explorer, curl up in there, could even fall asleep like that."

A pause.

"...ah. I am being told we did not sleep in the closet as a game."

"It has symbolism too, right?" asks Billy, sitting next to Layla. "Like, when you're 'in the closet'...even if someone sees you...they can't tell what you are."

"Smart lad." Steven looks them over with a critical eye as Tommy, and finally Elias, join the row. "Right, it ought to still count as symbolic even if your legs are sticking out. Stay there. Boys, no powers -- especially you, Billy -- I'm sure it will be very tempting to monitor what's going on with that sixth sense, but try to hold it back."

Steven-and-company switch off the overhead lamp, inspect both windows, then take a stance in front of the one facing east. They pull open the curtains and hike the blinds all the way up, letting the moonlight in.

(Marc used to have his Tomb Buster poster hanging right there. Now it's just an empty wall.)

Layla fusses with the settings on her tablet. The twins lean in for a closer look.

Elias, left without a task, starts into the Hashkiveinu again...

Marc cuts him off: "Dad, can you not?"

Elias winces. "You say what's meaningful to you, I say what's meaningful to me. This is a problem how?"

And, strangely enough, Steven comes to his defense: "If it makes him feel better, he might as well say it."

"What is it?" asks Billy.

It also makes Elias feel better to settle back into teacher mode. "The prayer for God to keep us safe through the night. Some believe it goes back to the Israelites praying for deliverance when Death passed over while we slept."

The boys give each other confused looks. Under his breath, Tommy asks, "Are we worried about Rio?" (Billy shrugs.)

"I...don't know who that is," admits Elias. "I'm talking about Passover."

In the soft glow of the moon (with sharp blue highlights from Layla's screen), both twins look blank.

"Do you...not know about...?"

He is trying not to sound like he's judging, but either he fails or the twins are just too on-edge to take questions, because Tommy yells, "We don't know anything about anything! We are thirteen months old!"

Elias stares.

Under his breath, Billy adds, "Fourteen months next week."

"Which means they've existed for exactly one Passover," adds back-to-Marc from the window. "And it happened the week the Skrull thing got hot, so no surprise Wanda didn't have time for a seder, she had..." He trails off, sighs, then finishes the sentence: "...bigger things on her plate."

Elias should groan at the terrible joke, but he's distracted doing the math. A little over a year ago... "You were created in the Maximoff Anomaly?"

Two miserable nods.

"Just, what -- out of thin air -- Wanda created two middle-schoolers?"

"No, we got born the normal way," says Tommy. "But babies don't get any good storylines! So the next day we skipped to five. And then Mom said five was too young to have a dog--"

Before Elias can make sense of any of that, Layla raises her voice to interrupt: "Less than five minutes out."

She shows the rest of them a map, Illinois and half of Ohio, with what looks like weather radar of a storm moving in. Is there an app for demon tracking now? Gosh, there's an app for everything.

The boys fall silent. Layla clicks her screen off.

"Come away from the window, mijo," calls Elias softly.

In the brilliant moonlight, Marc shakes his head. "I have the most leverage right here."

The room starts to dim, like the sky is rapidly clouding over. Billy hides his head in his arms. Layla starts into a quiet chant.

Marc falls into it with her.

A low thunderous sound rumbles through the building, almost drowning out Billy and Tommy's own little whispered mantra: "It's not our mom, it's not our mom, it's not our mom..."

Elias figures it can't hurt to start into...some other call for protection. Psalm 121 feels right, and he's heard it set to present-day music, he can say it from memory. "Esa einai el heharim, me'ayin yavo ezri? Ezri me'im Adonai, oseh shamayim va'aretz..."

Marc raises his voice that much louder, and keeps chanting, as red lightning crackles in the vale of shadows outside.

The view out the window is almost fully dark now. So why is it still bright...?

Oh. Marc is glowing.

Lit up like a person-shaped night light. Hands clasped in front of him -- not like he's praying, more like he's holding hands with himself. Eyes gone a pure bright white.

"You want to go hunting for magic?" he asks, suddenly back in clear English. "Okay. Get a load of this."

Nothing visibly changes, and the dull roar keeps getting louder...

"Step off," snaps Steven. "There is nothing for you here."

He switches into Spanish. "[Yeah, that's right, look away,]" he says, lip curling. "[Real easy, isn't it? Just don't notice. Just look away.]"

The rumbling is constant now. As if they're living next to a subway, and the trains won't stop.

Back in English, Marc intones, "These are not the droids you're looking for."

Wind whips through the trees.

Dropping his voice a little deeper, he growls, "So move the fuck along, bub."

Is the roar going down, or is Elias just getting deafened by it?

The voice pitches higher: "In the name of the you-know-who..."

"...you don't get them, you don't see them, you have nothing!" shouts Marc. "Choke on this and go!"

...the wind dies down, the thunder fades, the flashes of red flicker out.

Marc and Layla don't relax until the view outside the window lightens. When the first spears of moonlight poke through the clouds, Marc drops heavily to his knees in the bright rectangle it makes on the carpet.

With a vague wave towards Billy, he murmurs, "Now you can look."

Tommy whooshes them over to the window, where Billy cranes his neck to see what he can with blue-glowing eyes. Layla pries herself out of the closet to sit next to Marc, so he can fall across her shoulders and hide his face in her curls.

Elias tries to remember where he left off in the psalm...

Marc lifts his head. "Dad, stop."

It's a short one, he'll be finished in a second...

"No, really this time," says Steven, cutting him off. "Stop. Right there. Please."

"It was all right before," says Elias faintly. "Suddenly you're offended now?"

"It's not about whether we're offended." Steven sighs. "See, Rabbi...the god who actually pulled that rabbit out of a hat for us is a bit upset about someone else being given all the credit. And, for once? I think he's got a right to be."

☽︎

Elias is surprised he sleeps that night at all.

(He knew Marc was something.)

He keeps half-remembering the titles of books that came out back when it was just the Asgardians that had gotten in touch with Earth, when everyone who already had a God was scrambling to figure out how they felt about "gods." Probably gives himself terrible eyestrain, the way he keeps picking up his phone, trying to track each of them down and put them back on his reading list.

(There must be half a dozen in his office, still bookmarked with the notes Elias made when he read through them the first time. He doesn't remember any of them suggesting a rabbinically-approved response for when you get chastised on behalf of a god-identified being mid-prayer -- but of course he wasn't looking for that before! When should he have expected to need that?)

When he does finally drift off, it's only to keep getting startled back awake by perfectly-normal noises. Insects buzzing, a late-night train horn in the distance, non-demonic wind blowing peacefully through the trees.

(Sometimes there's yelling in his dreams, but it's always gone when he wakes.)

☽︎

When he gets up and the sun is out, Elias figures he might as well go downstairs.

There's movement in the kitchen. Marc (or Steven?) is probably making something nice for breakfast.

...It's not Marc or Steven.

"We're being really careful," promises Billy, supervising a round of sizzling pancakes, while Tommy fills a pot at the sink. Both of them are still wearing last night's rumpled clothes. "We're following every step on the box."

For a moment Elias fixates on whether they're old enough to be using the stove.

(he wouldn't know from experience, RoRo never got that old and little Marc never took an interest in cooking, Wendy didn't like him to be in the kitchen--)

...and then he remembers they're technically one-year-olds, and has to sit down.

At the kitchen table, so at least he can supervise. "If you want backup with anything, just ask."

Turns out, they do just fine on their own.

Nothing gets set on fire. Pleasant scents start to waft through the kitchen. The boys naturally work their powers into the process: Billy flips the pancakes with telekinesis, while Tommy holds the pot in both hands and speed-vibrates the metal until it boils the water inside.

Billy opens the fridge to find what's left of a carton of strawberries, now gone limp and fuzzy. Before Elias can advise him to toss them out, all the little seeds glow blue, and they explode into a fresh bounty of perfect red juice-commercial berries -- instantly overflowing their container, only saved because Tommy zips in to catch them with a mixing bowl.

Elias claps.

Both twins look shyly proud.

"Is that what you did with...yourselves?" asks Elias. "How you grew up so fast, I mean?"

It's all the prompting they need, to launch into explaining all kinds of wild truths about the Maximoff Anomaly.

Apparently Wanda, sort of like Marc, coped with severe personal trauma by escaping into TV characters. Unlike Marc, though, she was psychic enough to bring a whole town along for the ride. Billy and Tommy "grew up" in a simulation of the 1980s and '90s, based on American sitcoms.

"Then we get dragged out here, where everyone has phones all the time, and the internet doesn't scream when you log on, and it's okay to tell kids that mutants and gay people exist?" Tommy uses his fork to stab a mini-shishkabob, alternating layers of fluffy golden pancake and speed-sliced strawberries. "Talk about culture shock."

(In the background, Marc comes down the stairs, does a blank stare like he's trying to follow the conversation on zero sleep, then goes to fix himself tea.)

Billy sighs at his syrup. "At least they still make Lunchables."

"And Legos," says Tommy wistfully. "And more Star Warses."

"No wonder you have...disconnects...from your heritage," says Elias. When both boys tense up, he adds quickly, "It's fine! Sitcoms haven't exactly been known for their deep exploration of Judaism -- you'd be lucky to get a Very Special Hanukkah Episode -- that is not on you."

"It's not on your mom, either," puts in Marc, joining them at the table. "When you don't have...a ton of Jewish stories, to work with...she did the best she could. With what she had."

(Could that also apply to...the original Professor Steven Grant wasn't Jewish, as far as Elias knows...)

(Huh. Maybe it's no wonder they and Wanda made friends.)

Billy is nodding at Marc, but Tommy keeps an eye on Elias. "Can you still keep reading with us?" he bursts out. "Even if maybe we can't get bar mitzvah'd, because we won't really be thirteen when we're thirteen?"

"Of course! Of course. It's an honor," says Elias fervently. "Besides -- in a normal life, you wouldn't have waited until you're really twelve to start learning things! Of course you deserve a chance to catch up."

He still can't be sure why Wanda never mentioned bar mitzvahs to the boys. For all he knows, maybe it's just because the Jewish community in Sokovia did something entirely different.

But if she was afraid they won't be allowed to have them...? When all this is over, Elias will offer to hold them himself. Or at least help Wanda find another rabbi who's willing, from whatever tradition she prefers.

☽︎

Checking the news after breakfast finds that Not-Wanda's scouting demons have circled over the whole of North America during the night, spiraled around to cross the Atlantic, and are scouring Europe.

By lunch, they're doing Asia.

Some time in the evening, they drop off Layla's tracker entirely.

The household celebrates with pizza. After the past twenty-four hours, Marc and Layla agree they all deserve takeout. To avoid linking it to Elias's address, Marc sneaks out to pick it up under his mysterious "protection," wearing his SHIELD nanotech face mesh and paying in cash.

Hard for anyone not to be reinvigorated by the magic of Chicago deep dish.

☽︎

For a family movie that night, they set out to pick something that does put Jewish characters front-and-center. In the spirit of filling some gaps in the boys' appreciation of Passover, Elias suggests The Prince of Egypt.

(it was a big hit a few years after RoRo died -- multiple people quietly took Elias aside and said they didn't think Wendy was in any shape to watch it yet -- he saw it for himself years later, and it's a masterpiece, but also, wow, multiple people were right--)

...Marc has a serious talk about it with Layla first. In what Elias now knows for sure is Arabic.

Then Layla has a serious talk with the boys (in English), about how the archeological record for any of these events is thin to nonexistent, and they should take it more as a fable than as something too literal.

Elias feels more than a little defensive by the end. He's diplomatic enough not to pick a fight with Layla, but he does pull Marc aside and say, "You're all right with all of that?"

Marc raises an eyebrow. "My wife is always right, remember?"

"In general, yes, but she's not Jewish -- which is fine, you didn't have to marry a Jewish woman -- but for her to be telling the boys how to think about our history...?"

"She is Egyptian," points out Marc. "She's allowed to have her own thoughts about it. It's her dubiously-accurate history too."

Well. Hm.

"Besides. The animators put in the effort to be historical about the clothes and the architecture and so on, right...? She'll appreciate that part."

"I want us to watch it with Steven, though," cuts in Layla. "When I do complain, I know he'll back me up."

A small shift in posture, and Marc's heavy-browed seriousness breaks into Steven's soft smile. "At your service, love."

Elias does a double-take. "Wait. What happened to not asking you to switch without an offer...?"

"Our wife has a standing offer," says Steven firmly. "And if we couldn't do it right now, she'd understand. But Layla goes above-and-beyond all the time for the sake of supporting us. When she needs a little support back, we want her to say so."

So Elias gets his first experience watching this movie with a running commentary from two Egyptologists -- one trained expert, one enthusiastic hobbyist.

(The chariots: spot-on! The hieroglyphics: real symbols, but half the time they spell out gibberish. The obligatory Sphinx-nose joke: gets Steven so worked up about the anachronism that even Layla tells him he can relax.)

...and, yes, he could do a whole commentary track of his own about the Jewish historical elements that got simplified, streamlined, or Hollywood-ified. But Elias holds back the impulse to talk over his guests. He's already giving the twins lessons. He'll have...an unknown amount of time, possibly a long one...to build these things into the lessons.

☽︎

Elias sleeps through the end of the movie again, and wakes up to find only Steven still in the room. Watching a muted sports game on TV. No, wait -- it's a baseball game, so probably back to Marc.

He might actually be watching Elias, from the corner of his eye. In the low light, it's hard to tell.

Either way, he doesn't show any surprise when Elias stretches. "Buenos dias."

Elias surreptitiously checks the clock. Yes, it's still the same evening, he didn't spend the whole night down here. "Gracias. Are we winning?"

The answer comes in the same casual Spanish-English mix. "Us, us? Still alive. [I call that a win.] The Cubs? Gettin' crushed, lo siento."

After a few rounds of watching the Cubs get crushed even further, Elias ventures, "So, is it...do you and Steven both consider yourselves married to Layla?"

Silence. Long enough that Elias figures he's overstepped...

"It was just Marc out for [the wedding,]" says the man beside him. "But the ones who call ourselves [the husbands] are Marc, Steven...an' me."

Oh.

"Mazel tov," says Elias. And -- "It's nice to meet you."

A quiet scoff. "We've met."

If any (all?) of the leaning-into-Spanish has come from this third guy, then yes, Elias has met him. But still. "You didn't introduce yourself, [it doesn't count.]"

The other man shifts, uncertain. "...You just made that up."

"I'm making all of this up. I don't exactly have a manual." Elias spreads his hands. "You see a manual for this?"

"Mm."

Another long pause, then...

"Jakob." He says it with a more Hebrew pronunciation, though he goes Anglo for the nickname: "Jake."

A warm fuzzy feeling blossoms in Elias's chest. "It's nice to meet you properly, Jake."

(He was the one who picked out the boys' Hebrew names. He wasn't sure if Marc even still used it anymore. Apparently yes.)

Jake grunts. "Sure. Great. Look, don't expect a big heart-to-heart here, I just got chucked up front to cover [the end of the cartoon.]"

(...The end of the movie involves a character's young son dying, followed by a mass drowning. Elias isn't sorry he slept through it.)

"[Soon as I see how the game ends -- I'm out.]"

"Of course."

Elias is fully prepared to live up to that, to keep quiet until it's over.

But at the bottom of the eighth, it sure sounds like it's still Jake's accent that says, "You picked up that we work for a god, [right...?] Like, that's not a big reveal now? [You put that together.]"

"[I wasn't sure,]" admits Elias. "[But it seemed likely.]"

(For, not with. All right then. Something to focus his reading on.)

"[And -- are you gonna have a problem with it?]"

Is that why Marc and the others tried not to tell him about it? Was the fear of future mind-reading just an excuse?

All right, Elias still has his concerns. But he's gotten in a first round of research, and there is some precedent for this. "You know, Thor hired a Jewish publicist a few years ago...? I should have a problem with this? [A good job is a good job.]"

"We're not exactly a publicist," says Jake meaningfully. "And our guy's not exactly Thor."

"Anyone I would've heard of?" prompts Elias. 

"Depends." Jake waves at the screen. "When Moses was having his little magic-off with Pharaoh's court priests, and they did their whole song...how much attention did you pay to the names?"

Elias does a double-take. "You're working for an Egyptian god?"

"Yeah."

"[...are you okay?]"

Jake frowns. "Yeah?"

Pauses, with a distant look in his eyes, then some extra blinking as he re-focuses.

"I mean...he's not gonna win [Boss Of The Year] any time soon. But it's not like he got his claws on us and went 'aha, a Jew, time to get revenge!' He just had a general, y'know, Immortal Superiority Complex. And [Marc wasn't pushin' back at first,] on account of [Marc is fucked-up for reasons I guess we all agreed not to talk about.] We got some stuff worked out -- we're doin' better now."

Another pause.

"Okay, Steven says our guy did not rate a mention in the song? Neither did Layla's? [Rude.]"

Elias seizes on the option of a safe-looking topic shift. "Layla works for another Egyptian god? [Is that how you met yours?]"

"[Other way around.] She met hers through us," says Jake. "We met our guy [the old-fashioned way:] he picked us up when we got lost in the desert. Because I guess he didn't realize there's JDate now."

Elias has no idea what noise he makes at that.

"Joke!" yelps Steven. "Jake is joking, we are not dating any gods, that is not what's going on here! Ugh."

Pause.

"...No disrespect to Jane Foster. If Thor hit on us, I absolutely would."

☽︎

The next morning, Elias goes in for the service...

And it's delayed. Not for anything magical, or mutant, or related to the boys. Just for a purely-mundane police sweep of the building.

Elias's synagogue has never gotten a bomb threat that turned out to be real. But they're not about to start taking chances.

He mingles with the growing crowd as they gather in the parking lot, strolling from one cluster of congregants to the next, checking in. Trying to focus on managing this problem, to put aside all his worries about home.

"We don't get enough of these when there's normal storms?" complains Sam Berenson. Always liked to argue, even when he was Randall's best friend in elementary school. No wonder he's a lawyer now. "We have to get magic storms too?"

"At least if it's real, we can say Birkat hagomel for this and the storm demon at the same time," quips his partner Paolo, bouncing their fussy one-year-old on his shoulder.

(Fourteen months old, in fact...just like...)

"It wasn't a demon, there's a real word for it," says one of Elias's most enthusiastic students, looking crossly to Elias for backup. "Right, Rabbi?"

"Why don't you break it all down for them," says Elias, patting him on the back before moving quickly on.

"My Christian cousins on Facebook are all caught up in the weather-controlling lasers on the moon theory," says Sonya Davila, not looking up from her phone. Might be typing a rebuttal to those cousins at this very moment.

"Honestly," grumbles Sonya's latest husband. Elias keeps almost tripping up and calling him Rafael, even though this one is Rogelio. "They don't think Steve Rogers would have taken care of a moon laser by now?"

It kicks off a vigorous tangent debate about whether Captain America is really living at Nick Fury's secret moon base. Elias excuses himself before he can get too deep in wondering about Marc's SHIELD contacts.

A couple of kids sprint past, nearly knocking him over -- looks like a game of tag has broken out, and instead of taking it to a more open location, the children are treating the crowd as an obstacle course. "Ah! Excuse me," he says to whoever he just got shoved into.

"Don't apologize, Rabbi," sighs Rosita Leibovitz, host of book club. "At least one of those human missiles is mine."

(Did the twins have a group of kids their age to play with...? Tommy would crush it in tag.)

Rosita's brother Avi has put down the tailgate of his pickup, so their aging mother has somewhere to sit. He gestures for Elias to have a seat too. Elias politely declines; he's not that old.

...Although if he knew he was going to be walking around in the cold for an extra half hour, he would've brought his cane.

(As of last year, Avi has moved back in with his mother full-time, to look out for her and take care of the house. Which is sweet. But of course Elias doesn't need that either...)

"For once the conspiracies are half right, ay? It was one of us," says Avi. "She's just workin' outta Jersey."

Abuela Leibovitz sounds frail enough that a strong wind could blow her over, but she still manages to be scathing: "That Maximoff girl just can't stop making the rest of us look bad."

"It's not Wanda," says Elias sharply.

Half a dozen people look at him.

"You didn't see--? The X-Men said," stammers Elias. Trying to come off like someone who has no personal stake in this, not at all, he just completely trusts the X-Men. "It's not Wanda Maximoff. She's possessed."

Avi's mother sniffs in disapproval. "Well, they would say that. Those sorts always look out for each other."

It gets a chorus of disapproval from the rest of the little circle, so at least the attention is off Elias. (Sonya Davila even pushes her way in to go off about how a mutant was the maid of honor at her first wedding, and another was the photographer at her second, and they're just as good as anyone--)

At last, the synagogue doors open, and the bomb squad starts filing out. They're looking around for whoever's in charge, so Elias excuses himself once more.

"False alarm, Rabbi," says the captain briskly. "You're clear to go in."

"Thank you, officers," says Elias. "Any idea who made this one?"

"We've filed a report, and we'll look into it," says the captain. Which means no. "Have a, uh, blessed day."

Elias goes in first, then ends up stationed at the synagogue door, doing his greeting-and-handshake routine in reverse as people file in...

"...finally, someone's spotted these kids," mutters Señor Carrera to his wife, showing her his phone. "Maybe this whole mess can finally end."

The world slides sideways...

Chapter Text

He's all right, really -- he only barely passed out -- but Elias still has to talk a dozen different worried congregants out of driving him to the hospital.

"It's stress. Didn't sleep so well the last few nights -- who did? They'll just tell me to eat something and rest. I might as well stay here and do that myself. And," turning to Avi Leibovitz specifically, "next time someone offers me a nice seat, I'll take it."

He does agree to let Rabbi Sanders pick up the sermon. Says he doesn't want to be a distraction, so he'll rest in his office. Two of his students escort him there.

They also bring bagels, and a hot cup of decaf, and seem ready to babysit (elder-sit?) for the rest of the morning, until Elias manages to shoo them away too. "You think I'm going to expire in the next hour without supervision? Go show Arnie your support. I'll be right here when you get back."

So finally he's alone, and behind a closed door, with nobody to see him frantically waking up his computer and searching for Maximoff twins sighting.

There are results. From today.

He would read the details, but his head is spinning and his vision just went blurry --

"Dad."

Elias startles so badly he bangs his knees on the underside of his desk. "Wh--how--?"

He was alone, a second ago. Now there's Marc -- wearing the nano-mesh mask to give him an unfamiliar face, but the clothes are from Marc's limited wardrobe, the patterned shirt and high-collared jacket -- and next to him is Tommy, in a plain coat and green sweater, long hair all windswept from a sudden run.

"You were panicking so hard, Billy picked up on it from all the way back at the house." Marc leans over the desk and presses the back of his hand against Elias's forehead, the way Elias did when the boys were little and he was checking for a temperature. "Totally threw off his Pokémon game. I was going to text, but he wasn't even sure you'd answer. What's going on?"

"He's all right?" asks Elias. Leaning over to get a look at Tommy: "You're all right?"

"Yeah, fine." Tommy zips around to Elias's side of the desk for inspection, and accepts a tight hug with dignity. "Me and Billy are both fine."

Marc, meanwhile, turns Elias's monitor toward him for a better look at the screen. "This is what freaked you out...? It's okay, it's not a real sighting."

"You know this how?"

"...Because it's in Flagstaff."

Elias lets go of Tommy, makes a little production of taking his glasses off and wiping down the lenses, then has another look at the screen. 

"It's in Flagstaff," he echoes, now that he can read the summaries and not just the panic-blurred headlines. For this, he fainted? "Ohhh, thank...ah, thank any and all gods who may have had a hand."

"Did you have backup take over the service?" adds Marc, glancing at the door with the empty quiet hall outside. "Do you want to just come home? See both boys, then lie down for a while?"

"No, no, I have to stay and mingle when it's over. If I slip off without letting people see I'm all right, they will come by the house to check."

"Yeah, we shouldn't risk that," says Marc seriously. "When does your backup guy wrap it up?"

Arnie isn't one to carry on too long, but they did get that late start..."No idea, lo siento."

Marc nods. Then leans across the desk again, to chuck Tommy on the shoulder. "Go home, kiddo. If I need the high-speed service back, I'll send word."

Tommy is out of sight before Elias even begins to say, "I really don't need--"

He sighs. Marc, high-tech fake eyebrows raised as if defying Elias to complain, pulls up a chair.

"I didn't know it was Arizona, that's all." Elias spreads his hands. "How was I to know? The people who were talking about it, none of them said Arizona."

"This isn't the first false-alarm twin sighting," points out Marc. "Nobody here gossiped about the others...?"

He ends up walking Elias through all the sightings that passed the congregation by. One in Los Angeles. One in Winnipeg, of all places. One in Latveria.

Marc suspects that last one was a deliberate setup. Even if it was, though, Victor Von Doom did no better at getting Wanda un-possessed than anyone else has.

Turns out, it's not so bad to have the company. (The fake face is disturbing! But Marc turns his chair around so they're not even looking at each other, and that clears it up.)

And it gives Elias the opportunity to ask something he hasn't wanted to bring up around the twins: Are there plans for what happens if, chas v'shalom, Wanda doesn't come back from this?

There are. If possible, full custody goes to their father (currently "offline", but apparently that could change?), then their grandfather (currently an international fugitive, but same). If none of the above are available, there's a place reserved for them at the Xavier Institute. (Still one of the safest places in the US for mutant children, semi-regular attacks and all.)

The time flies by.

Until at last they hear the first muffled notes of the Adon Olam, warning them the service is almost over. "And that's the cue for my ride," murmurs Marc.

"Do you want to stay a while longer?" asks Elias. "I understand why you don't want to catch up with anyone you used to know, but maybe you want to walk around and see..."

He almost suggests the yarchtzit tablets, with the memorial plaque for Randall's name. Except that these days Wendy's plaque has been slipped in next to Randall's. And surely Marc would get upset looking at Wendy's.

"...ah, anywhere that isn't my office?"

"I like the office," says Marc. For some reason he sounds genuinely fond of Elias's mess. "I'm glad you didn't change too much. Got a lot of good memories in this office."

"Seriously?" Elias chuckles. "Like what?"

"Well...the peaceful sleep, mostly."

"Ah! You're making fun of your father for being boring."

Instead of smiling along with the joke, Marc twists to look at Elias again, face-to-disturbingly-artificial-face. "Dad. Do you not--?"

Zip! Tommy appears beside him. Accompanied by the sounds of other people starting to come out down the hall. "Hey, are you ready, because those doors are, like, open."

Marc sucks in a breath between his teeth, and gets to his feet. "Come home as soon as you're done mingling, okay?"

"Yes, mijo," says Elias.

...to the already-empty air.

☽︎

He mingles.

He lets everyone see that he's walking around on his own. He tells a few self-effacing jokes. He accepts a five-minute lecture from one of his students about how he should be using his cane. ("It's not just there for decoration, rabino!")

He lets the staff know he's going to take some planned time off. Rabbi Sanders can take a crack at running the whole synagogue. The re-roofing project is fully entrusted to his hands.

Then, at last, he accepts one of the many enthusiastic offers to chauffeur him home. (From Sonya Davila, on her new husband's behalf. Apparently Rogelio's car is much nicer than that wreck Rafael used to drive.)

Sonya would notice him sending a warning text, so when they turn onto Elias's street he just thinks, Billy, if you hear this, tell everyone to make themselves scarce, okay?

Sure enough, the Davilas escort Elias into what looks like a quiet, empty house.

It's not until they're safely driving away that the doors upstairs open.

"I heard you!" says Billy proudly, levitating down to the foyer and going for a hug of his own. "We were already upstairs, because Uncle K said to play it safe, but I did hear you! You didn't quit, did you?"

"No! Of course not." Elias gives him an extra reassuring squeeze. "Just taking a little break. Don't even need to make up a cover story, everyone knows it's for my health."

Tommy zips up next to them. Elias gets an arm around each of the twins...cups the backs of their heads in his hands...

And, before he can second-guess himself about it, chants, "Yesimcha Elohim k'Ephraim v'chi-Menashe. Yivarechecha Adonai v'yishmerecha. Ya'er Adonai panav eilecha vichuneka. Yisa Adonai panav eilecha v'yasem lecha shalom."

It's been so long since he's said that one.

(not since --)

But Billy and Tommy are both here, and Elias wants all the good things in the world for them, and the words come right back as if he never stopped.

☽︎

They have leftover pizza for dinner.

Elias invites the whole group to stay for the havdalah ritual afterward. Billy and Tommy follow his prompts with interest; Marc, with quiet familiarity. Layla politely declines, which is what Elias expected, but she watches with fond appreciation as the candlelight flickers across the boys' matching outstretched hands.

They watch (and Elias sleeps through the end of) My Favorite Martian.

This time, when he wakes up alone in the TV room, there's conversation in the kitchen. Sounds like Marc and Layla emptying the dishwasher. 

Slowly, he tunes in...

"...could he have missed it?" asks Layla, almost too soft to hear over the clink of plates.

"It was his goddamn idea," says Marc. Or...no, as he keeps talking, Elias is pretty sure that's Jake. "First time she threw us out, we just crashed somewhere in the woods...pretty sure that was the space cadet's big debut, he remembers it as bein' stranded on fuckin' Tatooine or wherever..."

Pause.

"Fine, fine, Endor. These nerds, I swear."

There's an obvious smile in Layla's reply: "Don't forget, querido, I was in the jet that time you walked Jean-Paul through all the rules of Animorphs."

The faucet comes on, apparently just so Jake can splash some of it at Layla. She snickers and ducks out of the way.

"Point is." Silverware rattles as someone stacks it in the drawer. "After the first couple times we disappeared overnight, he gave us a key and said [hold on to this, use it whenever you need, don't tell your mother.]"

"Translation?" prompts Layla.

Jake repeats the line in English. Then elaborates that Elias set up his office with all kinds of amenities. (A sleeping bag. A pillow. A little cupboard of snacks!)

"Is it so weird that he'd try not to talk about it?" cuts in Steven's accent. "We asked him to avoid the whole topic of why we didn't always sleep at home..."

Jake again: "So he can't even admit it happened?"

"All roads lead back to her eventually!" fires back Steven. The dishwasher slams closed with a thump and a rattle. "When you see a conversation coming up on it, you take the bloody exit!"

Someone follows up the slam by giving the cupboards a sharp kick. They're breathing hard.

(one time Elias heard a teenage Marc fighting with the furniture, afterward he had to replace a shattered mirror and a--)

"Hey," says Layla after a moment. "Give me a check-in."

Firm but not angry. Must be grounding for Marc. (It is for Elias, and he's just eavesdropping.)

"Need a minute," pants someone. "We're okay, just -- give us a minute."

A pause.

Might actually be a full minute later by the time someone says, "Marc is...not used to going this long without the kind of supervillains he can punch."

"Fair," mutters Layla. "I'm not either."

They head out of the kitchen together, moving out of earshot. Oh good. Elias can give it a few more minutes, then pretend he's just waking up, and they can all avoid an argument over who in this family is most likely to be remembering something wrong.

The last bit of the conversation he hears is what seems to be a mock pout: "And Jake is nitpicking my perfectly understandable driving metaphor."

☽︎

The next day goes disarmingly well.

Steven takes his own shot at making pancakes -- vegan edition. They come out tasty, if not quite as delicious as Billy's.

Marc, or maybe Jake, does self-defense with the boys. Tommy practices some super-speed punching, this time without going hard enough to shatter any ribs. Billy gets his turn practicing what Elias thought was telekinesis...but no, at least part of that is mind-control, isn't it.

Layla and whoever-it-is-now work out together. Then jump in the shower...possibly also together? Elias puts on some soothing jazz, settles in his armchair with the next book from his latest set of MPD/DID (depending on how long ago they were published) memoirs, and makes a point of not listening.

Billy and Tommy read more Animorphs, play a rousing game of Pokémon, and do some unholy things with Gak.

When Marc (?) comes back downstairs, he brings one of the memoirs -- from a small group Steven wasn't already familiar with, confiscated for vetting, to determine if they deserved a spot on Elias's reading list.

"This one's good," he says brusquely, holding it out. "Thought we'd be warning you about dated language, but it's...kind of amazingly modern."

Elias flips through the pages, looking for the publication date. Then does a double-take when he finds it. "This was from 1909?"

"Yeah."

And it's not some fanciful account, it was edited by a therapist! First published in a psychiatric journal! "The medical profession knew about this ninety years before I ever took you to see them, and still they said--?"

He breaks off mid-sentence, suddenly not sure if this is the kind of conversation where he should take the exit.

Marc plops down on the loveseat and gets comfortable -- or, no, this is Steven getting comfortable: "I realize this might be asking for trouble...but now I'm dying to know what they told you."

"Maybe we shouldn't," hedges Elias. "There's no changing it now. So what's the sense in dwelling?"

"If you don't tell us what they really said, we'll drive ourselves absolutely looney imagining all the possibilities," counters Steven. "We can imagine incredibly awful things."

(...is that a subconscious admission that they could've imagined what they talked about last night, or...?)

When Elias still hesitates, Steven folds his hands and waits.

Long enough that Elias ends up answering, just to fill the gap in the conversation: "I was -- strongly advised -- not to take you to a certain therapist, because they were into 'the multiple personality fad'. That's how they said it, those words. So if I wanted to get help with any of your real problems...we had to avoid this doctor, who would only encourage you to make up new 'imaginary friends' for attention."

Steven's eyes widen. "Oh no. Really?"

"Really."

"Oh my days." He slumps against the back of the seat with a weak laugh. "I don't believe it. Well, I do. We came so close! And yet..."

"I'm sorry," says Elias. "I didn't know."

A long pause.

(His background jazz changes tracks.)

Looking dreamily up at the ceiling, Steven says, "Might be for the best. Who knows? Believing our condition is real...it doesn't prove a doctor's not awful. Could've wound up like Sybil...therapist decided her actual symptoms and traumas weren't exciting enough...talked her into believing all sorts of lurid made-up nonsense, because it sold more books that way. Maybe you dodged a bullet for us...? No way to know."

Well. It's not total absolution, but it's some comfort. At least it's possible Elias didn't fully screw this one up.

He drums his fingers on the cover of the book from 1909. "Wouldn't you think..." 

He trails off, until Steven shakes back to attention and prompts, "Hm?"

"It's just...you know, the state of the world these days. Sorcerers and witches known to the rest of us, the mutant population going up every year -- there are psychics all over the place. Couldn't a group of them sit down with people like you, and prove, once and for all, that what's happening in your head is real?"

"Ah! You would think, yeah," says Steven wryly. "There's always an excuse, though, isn't there? Maybe we've just got an exotic new mutation. Maybe we're possessed, and that's getting mistaken for multiple personalities. Maybe the psychics actually put the idea in our heads, then hypnotized us to think we did it ourselves. If someone doesn't want to believe a thing -- they'll find a way."

"I see what you mean."

"Also...we are quite resistant to other people's mind powers. I expect it's one of the reasons we got trusted to watch...you know." He nods up the stairs, gesturing toward the twins' room with his eyebrows. "All the barriers and defenses we put up in here for ourselves, they work against outside interference, too. It's actually been sort of nice to get some practice using that? When we turned it against that scout-demon, it was on purpose -- we actually understood what we were doing! Before, it was all just happening on reflex."

Does Elias want to think about how they found out all this...? No, he does not. "It sounds very impressive."

Must be the right thing to say. Steven beams with pride.

"But, wait -- you weren't resistant to Wanda, were you? She just -- saw you."

"Well, yes," allows Steven, still with a broad smile. "But Wanda is a ridiculous outlier that nobody else should be judged by."

(How much more of a ridiculous outlier does someone have to be, that they can keep Wanda subdued for this long? ...You know what, Elias doesn't want to think about that either.)

Steven takes a breath. "Did you have -- questions?"

"What?"

"We probably won't answer all of them," he adds, apologetically. (This is news? As if they haven't sidestepped every question Elias has asked already!) "But if there's something you're curious about...you can't look in our head and just see it for yourself, so...you could ask?"

"It would be nice," admits Elias.

He's still curious about just how many "friends" Marc has. But he already got brushed off when he asked that. Better pick something else...

"Do you all have the roles, like they have in some of the books? Protectors, gatekeepers, internal self-helpers...persecutors?"

"...Sort of." Steven grimaces. "I got quite excited when I first started finding those words. Tried to work out everyone's categories, like I was sorting us into Pokémon types. And it's not that none of them fit -- everyone you've met is a protector, in some way -- but also...we're people? We're complicated! If you focus too hard on labels, it flattens all the nuances, you know?"

"I see. Yes. That makes sense."

"Especially that last one." Steven keeps unfolding and re-folding his hands in different ways, fingers twisting together. "Listen, there was a time. A while back, now. When Marc and I didn't see eye-to-eye...and I said some pretty awful things to him. So. Calling me a persecutor makes that sound like a special exotic DID thing, that needs a special exotic treatment? When really we just both needed to dig in our heels less, listen more, and put in some work to understand each other."

"It's hard to imagine you saying awful things to anyone," says Elias frankly. The Steven he used to know, the playful and light-hearted child, would never...

(Could Marc's brain have made two different Stevens?)

(...Or maybe Elias is trying too hard to make this a special exotic DID thing, when it's just that the child grew up.)

Steven gives him a wry smile. "Well. They were mean enough that I won't even repeat them. So you'll just have to trust us."

"A new question, then...?" When Steven waves for him to go on, Elias ventures, "Do you have -- that is -- are any of you children?"

Steven's gaze goes distant for a long moment...

"...Yes." He's still not quite focusing. "But they don't want to be talked about. No follow-ups about them, please."

"Oh! Of course."

Some of the memoir-writers have talked about alters who aren't even human. At least, not on the inside. Elias considers asking about those next.

Then he decides, you know what...if little Marc did round out his mental support system with cartoon ducks, or Ewoks, or an autonomous wisecracking spacesuit...that's a revelation Elias is just Not Ready to process right now.

Instead, he says, "When you were younger -- in the real world, I mean -- I remember times when Marc was...different. Not doing the Professor Grant voice, but different in other ways. Could some of those have been Jake?"

"Hm. Very likely." Steven holds up a hand while he listens to something, then says, "Jake isn't comfortable with you asking about anything specific. Sorry."

"If I think I saw...someone else. Times when I'm not sure you were Marc, Steven, or Jake. Could I ask about that?"

That perks Steven up again, smile warm, eyes bright. "Yes! Might not get follow-ups there either, depending on who it was -- but yes, please do. Genuinely, I have been wanting to ask you if you remember anyone else. What were they like?"

"There was...that is, you were..." 

Steven's interest is encouraging! But when Elias tries to actually put it into words...

(one time Marc came to breakfast in some of his mother's makeup -- nothing dramatic like lipstick, or Elias probably would've made him wash it off, but it was just foundation -- likely from a gift set Wendy had never opened, if Elias didn't draw attention to it, she might not even notice -- and it was probably just a phase, right? -- and it was one of those rare mornings where Marc seemed happy...)

"...I don't know the politically correct way to say it."

"Go for the politically-incorrect one, we can workshop it?" offers Steven.

Elias takes a breath. "Either a gay one, or a girl one?"

Steven's eyebrows jump.

At least he looks more intrigued than offended?

He holds up a hand for Elias to wait…nods a couple times, blinking as someone internally works it over…then relaxes into a grin: "Yeah, bet we know who that was. She's not keen on being talked about much either, but: girl one."

A wave of relief leaves Elias genuinely dizzy. He guessed something, and he was right, and Marc's protectors are glad he was right. Maybe there's some hope for him after all.

"Really, it's..." Steven scratches his neck, self-conscious. "It's sort of fitting. How you stopped giving Marc the 'blessing for sons' when you did."

(he didn't mean to stop, obviously it's supposed to be the same blessing no matter how many sons you have, and obviously Marc still deserved it, but it hurt to go back to saying "may God make you like this famous pair of brothers" to just Marc, it hurt to even think about--)

"...Rabbi?"

Elias blinks, shaking his head. "Hm?"

Steven is peering closely at him. When he speaks, it's cautious: "Think you might've just had another 'senior moment'."

"I...must have."

"Maybe we'd best stop here for the day, then."

"Of course! Sorry." Elias pulls off his glasses to massage his forehead. "I am trying to pay attention, I promise. It's just -- I'm not getting any younger..."

"It's all right," says Steven. "We do appreciate...well, most of us do...that you are trying."

☽︎

A few days later, another lesson with the boys.

Not practicing Hebrew this afternoon. Just filling in some of the stories they should've first learned from picture books as small children. If, you know, they had spent more than a day being small children.

The latest round: David and Goliath. Which leads the twins into a heated debate over whether Goliath was more likely to be an early mutant, or some kind of alien hybrid.

Until Billy sits up straight in his armchair, lips pursed, listening to something that probably isn't the music.

"I promise I'm not trying to read Uncle K's mind again," he tells Tommy. "But there is something going on."

Tommy narrows his eyes, nods, then zips up the stairs and says loudly outside Marc's door, "We know there's something!"

Marc opens it, and answers with a voice that carries all the way back to the ground floor: "We're fine, nobody's found us here, this thing's going down in Vegas!"

☽︎

Apparently, there was another false-alarm sighting of the boys that morning. Not-Wanda followed it to Nevada.

And then someone took their shot.

Now the bravest members of the Vegas media are filming as she hovers in front of the towering white facade of the Planet Hollywood hotel...with eight red-glowing missiles hovering in a neat circle in the blue sky overhead.

"We haven't been able to get an official comment on whether the US military fired on Maximoff," says the harried anchor in the studio, a shaky camera feed of the missiles projected over her shoulder. "Our New York office reports that a jet full of Avengers is en route--"

A wash of static shimmies over the camera feed.

"Can you still hear us?" asks the anchor. "You're breaking up -- okay, we've got you again, but..."

The missiles shake, roll, and start to pull away.

Not-Wanda isn't the one moving them. Her scarlet aura blazes brighter as she claws in their direction, trying to drag them back.

They only wobble for a moment, then pull away harder...and crumple in midair as they move, as easily as pop cans flattened under an invisible boot.

Another prickle of static, cutting up the view in diagonal stripes.

In the TV room, where the twins are squished protectively between Layla and Marc on the couch, Tommy hisses a triumphant "yessss."

The crushed missiles do a controlled swan-dive, leveling off seconds before they can crash, soaring along the walkways of the Vegas Strip like birds skimming over a lake. In a film, the camera would undoubtedly swoop after one of them, and pull up to dramatically reveal the man commanding them.

Here in reality, the new arrival is too far away for a clear shot. The camera swings, zooms erratically, loses focus...

...and fuzzes under another flare of electromagnetic interference.

Billy and Tommy both grin.

"Aww yeah," says Tommy, punching his palm in triumph. "It's Grandpa."

Chapter Text

The metal of the failed missiles stretches like putty, whirls briefly around Magneto's silhouette, then flows outward in chunks that sprout upward into safety barriers. Cars are redirected. The braver and/or stupider tourists are gently but firmly shoved back.

Not-Wanda floats down to land on a long white pedestrian bridge, arcing over the main road by the casino, tall as the palm trees planted in clumps on either side of it. Her tiny distant figure makes a brisk gesture, and the news camera yanks away from its holder to fly towards her.

"I didn't come here to hurt anyone," says Not-Wanda to the camera.

Confidentially. Like she's talking to an interviewer on The Office, not talking to the evening news through a stolen body she's been running ragged.

(The news still has their logo and an all-caps ticker superimposed on the feed, recapping the possession so far...plus an interlude about stock prices.)

"Someone seems to have misplaced his missiles. I only came here to give them back."

She spins the view to take in Magneto -- he must have a real name, but he's been through enough of them that Elias isn't sure which he prefers -- as he floats up over the safety railing. Levitating his metal armor, with himself inside it.

(In the room, Billy's powers react on instinct, lifting any loose object gently into the air: both remotes, a few mismatched coasters, Freckles the Leopard.)

The camera zooms in, catching as much of Magneto's face as the helmet will let anyone see. His reply comes as clear as if he's wearing a microphone -- maybe it's magic, some magnetic effect on the equipment, or maybe he's just that gifted of a public speaker. "It wasn't me who fired on you."

(The ticker helpfully reviews his news-making history of “catching other people's missiles.”)

Not-Wanda's skin is charred, her voice is raw, her eyes look like she hasn't allowed this body to sleep for weeks. "Lucky coincidence, then, that you have perfect control of them now."

Magneto doesn't flinch. "I wouldn't try to kill my daughter."

She hesitates, visibly unnerved.

"Did you know? The woman you're possessing...she's my daughter."

He has both hands raised, palms open in a gesture of peace. Not that it's very reassuring, when he can bend steel with a thought.

"Her name is Wanda. She has a brother, his name is Pietro. Twins. She's sixteen minutes younger."

(This is what they do on crime dramas with hostage negotiations, isn't it? Try to humanize the person they're holding...?)

"Her favorite food is homemade paprikash -- her mother's recipe. Not my wife, the mother who raised her."

Magneto takes a step forward.

"She loves American sitcoms. Can practically recite her favorite episodes. She's shy about singing in public, but she has a beautiful voice..."

He trails off.

Not-Wanda is laughing.

Silently at first, then wheezing, then a breathless cackle.

"Of course this Wanda has a father!" she cries at last. "She has everything else! She has a brother. She has a magic teacher. She has a whole mutant community. She has an Avengers team that's still alive and together. They're even rebuilding her husband! Why shouldn't she have a father?"

"...Wanda?" asks Magneto. 

"Yes, yes, Wanda," says the woman across from him, shrill and desperate. "But not your Wanda. You went and got her, didn't you -- when her childhood home was bombed to rubble around her? You didn't let her Pietro get shot to pieces in a senseless war! You didn't leave her chained up and drugged in an American secret prison! You had your X-Men help her out of Westview so her boys didn't die!"

(She pronounces it "your ex's men," which is probably just the Sokovian accent...)

"Let her be the one to lose, for once! She'll survive if I take these boys. The rest of you will be there for her! I have no one. I have nothing!"

"Wanda. Listen to me," intones Magneto. Still in the soothing hostage-negotiation voice, switching to her name without missing a beat. "This won't work. You can't just -- replace the children you lost. That won't make you happy."

Other Wanda twists her borrowed face into a charred, feral snarl. "What would you know about it?"

"I lost my daughter."

"She's fine, she's asleep, she'll wake up when I leave and you'll never even know she was gone--"

"I'm not talking about my Wanda!"

Again, it catches Other Wanda off-guard. She stutters, hissing. Part of her black-and-red outfit (or maybe that's a black accessory, strapped to her hip) lets out wisps of smoke.

"Her name was Nina," says Magneto. "I don't even know if she was a mutant. She was barely six."

(On the couch, the twins are both sniffling.)

"But people thought she might be. And that was enough to scare them. And they killed her."

One more step forward. Just the one.

"I've done a lot of things in her memory. Humans call me a monster for some of them. I don't regret...most of them. But I know what kind of things make the grief easier, and I promise you, Wanda, kidnapping someone else's children is not one of them."

Other Wanda's face twists like she might cry...if she even can right now, if she hasn't been running this body on pure magic for too long to keep it hydrated...

The object attached at the hip, some kind of carved box or spellbook, starts smoking in earnest. It billows up around and behind her, like a cape, like great black wings.

"They're your grandsons." A red light fills her eyes. "You know where they are."

(Elias's blood runs cold. That's the mind-reading look, is she right, is she pulling the knowledge out of his--)

"Take off that stupid helmet and show me."

But Magneto just calmly shakes his head -- and, right, he has shields even Professor X can't get through. "I only know that Charles sent them somewhere safe."

Other Wanda shudders. "Then...you decided...to send them away. With unknown strangers."

"You can end that. Let their mother go. The boys can come home to her, as soon as you let her go."

When she answers, it's like she didn't hear him. "They're not safe in a world like this. In a family like this."

She makes slow dragging-upward gestures with both hands. A half-dozen palm trees, the least-metal objects in sight, uproot themselves from their cultivated plots on either side of the walking bridge.

"You could have done this the easy way," she hisses.

The ad-hoc missiles blast forward.

They explode on impact with a metal shield that wasn't there a second ago -- the air ripples with a blast of heat, the view whirls as the camera crashes to the walkway --

A sideways foot-level angle of palm-tree detritus catching fire, metal instantly weaving itself into cables and surging forward, cracks ripping across the stone of the bridge beneath them --

A crack splits under the camera. One more wild spin, and the view goes black.

(Except the news ticker, now updating them on a hurricane a thousand miles south.)

The screen cuts back to the news studio. Elias nearly jumps out of his skin when every floating object in the room drops at once, both remotes clattering onto the table next to his end of the couch.

He flinches again when, without warning, Marc leans in front of him -- just to grab one of the remotes, luckily the right one first try, and switch the TV off.

In the suddenly-dim room, over the sniffling of both twins doing everything they can not to cry, Layla murmurs, "That explains a lot."

(her sons died, that would make anyone a little crazy)

"Aunt Layla, can't your boss do anything?" yells Tommy, too loud, voice breaking. "Since she's--" He hiccups. "She's still a mom, right? Or -- does it not count anymore?"

"I've already asked, she is still in our jurisdiction, and my boss is trying," says Layla, firm and steady. "But this -- this is probably why we haven't been getting anywhere. Blessing one mother to fight off a threat to her children is a lot more straightforward than intervening in...mom-on-mom violence."

Billy, almost too quiet to hear, says wetly, "M-maybe we should go with her."

A ragged chorus of "No!" from Layla, Marc (?), and Elias all at once.

"Maybe!" Billy wipes his face with his sleeve. "She's not our mom, but she's, she's kind of our mom?"

(she's not okay and they can't make her okay--)

"And she's all messed up because her version of us died-- "

(they can't replace the sons she lost, she'll know that every time she looks at them, it's just going to make her sadder and angrier--)

"--so maybe if she had us back--?"

(and she'll take it out on--)

Elias cuts him off: "No -- ░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░
░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░
░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░
░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░
░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░
░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░
░░░░░░░░░░░░░░where you'll be safe--!"

A flash of blue.

He catches his breath.

Oh. Oh dear. At some point there he leaned toward the boys -- too far, he's half in front of Marc -- and loomed so hard that now Billy has a handful of telekinetic sparkles in front of his chest, blocking him from getting any closer.

Marc has a supportive arm tight around Billy's shoulders. On the other side of them, Layla has Tommy's back.

All of them are staring.

"Sorry," says Elias distantly, pulling himself back to a safe distance. How embarrassing. Where did that even come from? "Didn't mean to get so...worked up."

"It's okay," says Marc. The blue glow casts strange shadows across his face. "You're okay." 

He gives Billy an extra squeeze:

"You got a read on that, buddy?"

"Uh-huh." The kid does a quick hand flip; his sparkles fade out. "It was -- like you do, Uncle K, when the guy in front is going away? Except he didn't have anybody else come in. He just...went away."

"I didn't go anywhere." Why are they talking like Elias isn't here now? "I'm right here."

"I know." Is this still Marc? He's being so...soft. "Dad?"

(Layla rests her chin on the top of Tommy's head, both of them riveted.) 

"How much of what you just said do you remember?"

Oh no, how long did he carry on for? "You want I should repeat all that word for word? I didn't make my point the first time?"

"He's got this...fog," reports Billy under his breath. "He didn't hold on to any of it. Just got yeeted straight into the fog."

Stay out of my head! thinks Elias, bristling and defensive, at the same time as Marc (?) says out loud, "Don't go pokin' around in the fog, brujito."

Billy winces back. "I wasn't gonna."

Marc pats him on the shoulder, while addressing Elias again: "Dad, have you ever been to a therapist?"

What a question! His son died, then he lost his wife, then he lost his other son, then his wife died -- "Of course I've been to therapists."

"And did any of them ever tell you that you dissociate? Like -- a lot."

"I got old!" cries Elias, exasperated. "An old man can't be forgetful sometimes? If you had visited your parents at all in the past twenty years, maybe you wouldn't be so surprised to see I got old!"

Dead silence. The only sound is from Marc taking a deep breath, obviously counting before he lets it out. Everyone else is holding theirs.

"...You can't actually remember most of what she did to us, can you?"

Elias remembers, he remembers, does Marc expect them to talk about the details in front of the boys--

"Uncle K!" hisses Billy, tugging urgently on Marc's shirt. "Stop poking around in the fog!"

And Tommy, dry-eyed but hoarse, adds, "We really can't go with her, huh."

"[Absolutely fuckin' not.]"

It's in Spanish, but even to the non-speakers, Jake's disdain must be unmistakable.

"Know what you can do, though?"

He stands in one sharp motion, spins on his heel so he's facing Layla and the boys, and punches his palm.

"Sneak out somewhere way off in the woods, and totally lose it on some trees. Also works on punching bags an' supervillains, but we got limited age-appropriate options here, so -- I'm gonna go fuck up a tree or three. [Who's with me?]"

☽︎

Elias pulls his favorite armchair over to one of the back windows, leans on the sill, and spends most of the next few hours watching the yard.

(The fence in the fading afternoon sun. Rows of treetops, halfway through shedding this season's coat of red-and-gold leaves, extending away behind it.)

He keeps coming back to the same psalm. At least this time Marc's divine patron isn't in the room to be offended.

"Adonai shomrekha Adonai Tsilkha, al-yad yeminekha. Yomam hashemesh lo yakeka, v’yareach balaila..."

(God is your keeper; God is your shadow, at your right hand. The sun shall not harm you by day, nor the moon by night…)

The sun sets. He doesn't get up to turn on the lights. Little flames flicker on the other side of the kitchen doorway, from the candles Layla asked if she could use.

(For some prayers of her own, maybe? To her parents' god, or the one she works for...?)

If Marc and the boys are being careful, Elias shouldn't see or hear any sign of them on their way home.

"Adonai yishmor tse’atkha, uvo’ekha me’ata v'ad olam."

(God will guard your going out and your coming in, from this time forth and for ever.)

He watches anyway.

☽︎

Sure enough, Elias doesn't even hear the back door. There's just movement in the TV room again, followed by someone switching the kitchen lights on.

The backlight is almost blinding as Elias turns to see...three coats floating out into the living room. Soaring through the air, they swoop over to the front closet, and neatly hang themselves up.

Marc (?) steps through the doorway next, scrapes on his knuckles and twigs in his hair, slow and blank-faced. Doesn't acknowledge Elias. Stares vaguely after the coats.

(Not in shock. Not like whoever-this-is didn't know about Billy's abilities. More like he's...trying to figure out if he's supposed to follow them?)

Billy steps up beside him, pant cuffs and knees smudged with dirt. "You should go shower," he tells Not-Marc, pointing up the stairs. "It's on the second floor. You can..."

And then there's Tommy. Billy locks eyes with him for a moment; Tommy nods and zips up the steps.

"...There's gonna be clean clothes in there," finishes Billy. "You can put those on after."

Not-Marc doesn't ask any questions, just looks behind them for confirmation.

"It's all right," says Layla, appearing in the doorway and leaning against the frame. "Go ahead."

Not-Marc nods slowly, and starts up the stairs.

Elias looks out the window again. His brain has latched onto a vague idea that, since Marc hasn't actually come home yet, he should keep watching.

"You did very well with...that one," Layla tells the boys. "You're being very brave."

In the reflections in the glass, Elias can see as Tommy fidgets, and Billy shrugs.

"Your grandfather's okay. Held his own until the Avengers made it to Vegas. They, ah -- they did take him into custody. A lot of governments would make a fuss if they just turned him loose without even pretending to make an effort. But they won't hurt him – and you know they won't hold him long."

"What about...not our mom?" asks Billy.

Layla just shakes her head.

Her reflection looks in Elias's direction for a moment. Shadows hide the expression on her backlit face.

"Come on," she tells the boys. "Looks like tonight it's on us to figure out dinner."

☽︎

He doesn't know how long he's been sitting in that chair by the time someone comes over and crouches beside it.

"Dad."

Elias blinks. Even now, nobody's turned on the overhead lights. The glow from the kitchen, where he can hear people cleaning up, seems about a mile away. "Marc...?"

"Yeah. It's me," says the man in the gloom next to him. "You can't space out down here all night, you'll ruin your back."

Elias reaches for him.

Marc tenses, but lets Elias rest a hand on his head. His curls are still damp.

(...From a shower, that's all. He just took a shower.)

"I'm doing the thing you said, aren't I?" asks Elias.

"Which thing?"

Elias moves his touch down to cup Marc's face. "A psychic told me what's going on in my head. And I don't want to believe it."

"Oh," says Marc quietly. "Yeah. Seems like it."

He rests one of his own hands over Elias's.

"Let's go upstairs, okay? Either lean on me, or I'll go get that cane you keep hiding...but you've gotta get to bed. One of the things about being messed-up in the head is, it gets worse if you don't sleep."

Feels like every last one of Elias's joints complains as he stands up. He lets himself hold on to Marc's arm until they reach the stairs. "Don't let the twins go with her."

"We won't."

"She's not okay." At last, the railing. Elias shifts his weight to lean on that instead. "They won't be safe."

"They know." Marc stays by his side as they head up. "You made a pretty big impression. They won't forget."

"You promise?"

"Swear to...any and all available gods."

(Elias is too tired to figure out if that's a good thing or not.)

Chapter Text

He gets a ride to the synagogue in the morning, to pick up a few things out of his office. Would have stayed for the Thursday morning Torah readings...but after three different people chide him to go home and catch up on that sleep he so clearly needs, he agrees.

At least he's able to drive away in his own car this time.

He visits yet another new library, returns a few books, and picks out a few replacements. Including, for himself, a short volume of Egyptian mythology (delving too deep might break the confidentiality of Marc and Layla's patrons, but surely he can brush up on the basics). And a new DID memoir that Steven told him was well-done.

(one time he overheard Steven explaining the plot of a whole sci-fi book series to Wendy, he was over the moon about what he thought was Marc and Wendy reconnecting, until "Marc" left and Elias came in to ask her about it, only to find her fast asleep next to an empty bottle--)

As he's running his hand along the shelf looking for the title, he stops on the spine of what looks like a self-help book. Not for Marc's condition in particular. Just for dealing with dissociation in general.

(one time Wendy came downstairs with blood on her hand, Elias followed her to the sink and asked where she was hurt, she threw a fork at him and told him to stay out of it--)

He spends some uncountable amount of time staring at the blurb on the back cover, not taking in a word of it.

(one time a therapist did tell him some amnesia was normal -- but, wait, which therapist was it, and how long ago...?)

This branch of the library is far enough out of his way, he stops at a nearby diner for lunch and doesn't get recognized. Spends a while just gazing out the big glass windows, watching people on the street go by.

It's surreal that they're all so normal. For them, yesterday was just another day. The battle in Vegas, if they heard about it at all, was just another superhero fight.

(it was like this for at least a year after Randall, his world had ended, he didn't know what to do with himself when he wasn't caring for Marc or Wendy, and all the while, outside a quiet circle of family and mourners and supporters, everyone else was just...going on?)

He visits the kosher bakery on his way home, which is local enough that this time he gets pulled into a conversation. Explains to Rosita Leibovitz's incredulous children that it's okay for him to buy this many donuts at once because, as an adult, he has the self-control not to eat them all in one sitting.

The twins are still in their bedroom when he gets home.

"I took them Lunchables an hour ago, they won't go hungry," Layla confides in him. "They're not sick, just tired. Let's let them rest."

(one morning Marc was so tired at breakfast that Elias said he could skip school and go sleep in, only for Wendy to drag him back downstairs ten minutes later, and she was in such an awful mood that Elias thought maybe Marc would be safer at school after all--)

(he'd be safer at school?--)

"Of course," says Elias. "Just promise you'll save them some donuts."

☽︎

He's in his office, about five minutes into staring at the same page of the self-help book, when Marc (?) passes on his way up the stairs.

Before Elias can second-guess himself, he turns his chair to face the door and calls, "Can you come in for a minute, mijo?"

"Hey, Dad." All right, that's Marc. "You okay?"

"Fine! Fine. Just come in?"

Marc does, sliding the door shut.

"One time..." Elias belatedly thinks to turn his family photos face-down. The ones Marc doesn't like looking at. "A doctor did. Tell me I had...dissociation. I couldn't remember something, and he said that was probably why."

"...really?"

"It was a long time ago. I only just remembered!" He wants Marc to know that, he's not just in denial for the sake of it. "It wasn't supposed to still be a problem. The doctor said it shouldn't keep being a problem. I didn't even remember until after you asked."

Marc cranes his head to get a better look at the new book, currently open on the desk. Elias fumbles for something to bookmark it with (even though he's only on page four), marks the place with some coupon he got in the mail, and hands it over.

"It was from so long ago," he repeats. 

There's a stretch that's just Marc flipping through pages, checking it out.

"When you've done it once," says Marc after a bit. "When your brain figures out that it...works. One Weird Trick to kick the consequences of trauma down the road."

He snaps the book closed, and holds it in front of his chest like a shield. 

"A doctor can't promise you won't do it again."

Elias turns his chair so he can look at the window.

(It's a lovely day out there. Supposed to snow later, but for now, it's all clear blue skies...)

"...What I couldn't remember was the night your brother died."

(he only ever told a few people, when the regular refrain of zichrono l'bracha started to feel like an accusation -- one dear friend suggested Elias should think of it as a gift, after all the trauma of that night, may the amnesia be a blessing--)

"The therapist I talked to, after, he wanted me to talk about it. And I just -- didn't have it. The days after, I could tell him bits and pieces, but that day...the search party, how we found you, whatever happened that first night at the hospital...it was all gone."

(he even spent some amount of time praying that Marc could be spared as much of the memory as possible -- if only he had known...!)

Behind him, Marc says quietly, "I...don't think we ever thought about if you remembered that or not."

"Everyone said it was normal," says Elias miserably.

"It -- can be, yeah. Your brain protects you."

"But...I did come look for you!"

"I know, Dad. I know you did."

"My brain didn't make me forget so much that you could get hurt and I wouldn't notice -- wouldn't worry -- wouldn't care!" Elias turns the chair back just far enough to see Marc's face. "So why should it do that later? I didn't want protection if it looked like that! How could I -- what did she...?"

He reels himself in. He can feel he's getting agitated. And Marc is shaking, caught in the blank stare Elias is coming to recognize, then squeezing his eyes shut to hold it back...

Marc (?) slams the book down on the corner of the desk, and snaps, "We cannot have this conversation now, Marc is not good for it."

"Of course," says Elias instantly.

"Frankly," adds Steven, setting his jaw, "I'm not sure you're good for it."

He wrenches the door open, and leaves before Elias has a chance to say you're probably right.

...A few minutes later, Elias hears the low chatter of him "talking to himself" on the floor above.

(one time Marc was reading out loud in his room, late enough that he was keeping his parents awake, Wendy dragged herself out of bed and said she would handle it, and then--)

The family photos are still face-down on the desk.

Elias doesn't pick them up.

☽︎

The next day, a light snow whirls around outside the windows, and the twins still don't come down for breakfast.

Layla says they're still not sick. That's "her jurisdiction," apparently. Marc (?) says he's not making them do self-defense today...and makes a pointed suggestion that they might not be up for Hebrew/Jewish-culture/non-sitcom-history lessons, either.

Just in case, though, Elias puts in some extra effort to find material that won't seem hopelessly out-of-touch with what they're going through.

At last he walks up all the stairs, and knocks lightly on the twins' closed door.

"What?" demands Tommy.

Elias pushes it open.

Billy is lying on the futon, face-down, a pillow over his head. Either he got up long enough to change out of pajamas, or he just slept overnight in those clothes.

Tommy is sitting next to it, hugging his knees, attention focused on an elaborate Lego building. (Elias thought all of Marc and Randall's Legos had been donated long ago, but he must have missed a tub.)

In deference to Layla's child-safety senses, Elias resists the impulse to offer aspirin, or hot tea, or extra blankets. "I wanted to invite you to do some reading with me."

A blink, and Elias realizes the Legos have been completely rearranged. Now they look like a castle (or maybe an ancient cathedral?), strangely ominous in spite of the bright primary colors.

"We don't wanna do stupid homework," snaps Tommy.

"All right. I won't make you."

Another blink. The Legos approximate the shape of a nice pleasant suburban house, two stories tall, with a gabled roof and a low fence around the yard.

"Someone asked, a while ago, how I would ask God to bless someone going into a magic battle," says Elias. "I've found a psalm for it. I wanted to say it for your mother. I thought you might want to join me."

The Legos get rebuilt into the iconic silhouette of the Baxter Building (at least, before its latest round of getting demolished in a superhero fight), and Tommy narrows his eyes at Elias. "Now you're trying to trick us into doing homework."

"We don't have to say it in Hebrew. Of course I would help you read the Hebrew if you wanted to -- but it's not any less special if we say it in English."

This time, Tommy doesn't redo the Legos. "...Really?"

"Really."

"How come you only ever say this stuff in Hebrew, then?"

Before Elias can put the answer into words, Billy pulls the pillow away, lifts his head, and says, "It's like how Mom only says sitcom quotes in English. And with the original timing and accents and everything."

"Ohhhh."

...Elias doesn't think it's quite like that. But if it's comforting for the boys to think of it that way, who is he to argue?

Billy's eyes light up. Then Tommy's do too -- must be something they want to confer about without Elias overhearing. There's another super-fast Lego rebuild somewhere along the way. (Is that the synagogue? Tommy hasn't seen much of it, but the building isn't so fancy it would be hard to recreate from memory, and it's a box with the right decorative shape to the roof...)

"Yeah, okay," says Tommy, while Billy pries himself out of bed. "I mean, why not try it, right? We can at least try."

And they come with Elias down the stairs.

It's encouraging enough that Elias decides to see if he can build on that. "I had a few different ideas for blessings we could say for your grandfather's recovery, too," he admits, as they set up at the living room coffee table. "Maybe you could help me pick one...?"

The boys both grimace. Tommy fidgets, while Billy says evasively, "Maybe let's not."

Not the reaction Elias was expecting. "Can I ask why not?"

"Uh..."

Tommy jumps in: "Grandpa told us, if you want something, there's no point in asking his god for it, you just have to go out and get it done yourself."

Ah.

Well. That certainly tracks with what Elias knows about Magneto's approach to...everything.

He resists the impulse to use this as a jumping-off point for a broader discussion about prayer -- what it means, what it's for, how it doesn't leave you free to abandon the work. (What he really wants is to have that conversation with their grandfather, and trying to have it by proxy through the boys is absolutely not what they need right now.)

All he ends up saying is, "This is your family. Whatever you think would honor them best, that's what I want us to do."

So they go with Elias's original proposal, just reading Psalm 46 -- one of the ones that petitions God to bring, not the destruction of the singer's enemies, but survival and peace for everyone. First in English. ("God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved; God shall help her, at the approach of morning...")

Then the twins have another telepathic chat, and decide they want to try working through it in Hebrew, "just in case."

At some point during that part, Elias realizes Marc (?) is watching from the doorway.

(He doesn't look up enough to find out how Marc feels about it. Keeps his focus on helping the boys with the next line.)

☽︎

The snow has stopped falling. Elias is sitting by one of the back windows in his favorite armchair, gentle piano music playing on his phone. At first he was reading a commentary on the psalm he picked for the boys, but now he's just enjoying the view, the yard gently dusted in white.

He startles when Marc drops something on the coffee table with a thump. Then relaxes as Marc sits on the couch, and Elias processes that he just brought over a basket of laundry, fresh out of the dryer.

At first, neither of them talks. Marc pulls a shirt (one of Billy's striped ones) off the top, shakes it out, and starts wordlessly folding it.

Sets it down. Picks up a pair of junior-size pants. Shakes that out too...

"Don't know why we never thought you might have memory issues," he says absently -- and oh, this is Steven. Distracted with the task of an inside-out pant leg. "She's not like that, she wouldn't do that. That's my bloody line, innit."

Elias is genuinely not sure if that's addressed to him, or if this is more talking-to-himself.

"You probably ought to...have the conversation. At some point. Eventually." Steven gets the pants all turned the right way, and folds them neatly in halves, then quarters. "I think it could be...healthy. If Marc could tell you about things..."

Okay, now he's talking to Elias.

"...and if for once you wouldn't downplay or deny them, if you would start saying well, maybe I don't remember that, but I believe you, and you didn't deserve it..." He puts the folded clothes in a neat stack. "That would mean a lot to him."

"I'd like to try it," says Elias softly.

For a while, Steven just folds. He's pretty quick at it. Doesn't take long to build up four stacks -- the shared clothes for Marc's body, the kid-size ones, Layla's, and a few of Elias's.

Is he working up to telling Elias about some of it now? Would it help to ask...?

...then, oh wow, Elias can feel his own brain going fuzzy at the prospect. Like making yourself dizzy walking right up to the edge of a cliff.

"Just...best we hold off until after we're all safely out of this...fun little trigger minefield we find ourselves living in." Steven pulls out a shirt that definitely belongs to Layla. Doesn't start folding it right away, just presses the warm fabric against his face. "Last thing Billy and Tommy need right now is for any of us to have a full-on nervous breakdown."

Elias doesn't try to hide his sigh of relief. "Of course."

The basket is almost empty when Steven adds, "Probably best we do it under supervision of a good therapist, too."

Ah, a topic that's less of a minefield. "Did you have anyone in mind?"

The person Elias talked to after Randall's death is long retired. The one he saw after Wendy's death is still around...and already caught up on some of the Spector family history, given how many feelings Elias had to work through about Marc's five-minute appearance outside the house...but if they're picking someone to see together, maybe they should start fresh.

Or maybe Marc has already found someone that's a specialist in his...combination of issues. Those can't be too common. If he's already got one, maybe Elias shouldn't make him vet another...

"Might do, yeah." Steven flips the laundry basket over, dumping a pile of miscellaneous socks next to his neat stacks of everything else. "We had just got a recommendation, before all this happened. From...well, they're in Alpha Flight, and they're like us. Didn't have time to follow up on it before this mission whisked us away."

"How did you meet someone in Alpha Flight?" They're Canada's answer to the Avengers, aren't they? "Did you have some kind of international team-up?"

That actually gets a bit of a smile out of Steven. "Would you believe Wolverine introduced us?"

"Yes," says Elias without hesitation.

At this point, he could believe just about anything. If Steven had said they all met on the Moon while having Thanksgiving dinner with Captain America, Elias would just nod.

"...Hey. Tell me somethin'."

That's not Steven. The British accent is gone.

In case this is one of the people who doesn't like to be speculated about, Elias doesn't call him on it. "Yes?"

"Say, if -- back when these guys were kids -- somethin' took you out." His rough voice and squared shoulders remind Elias of Jake...but there's no Spanish in his accent. Somebody new? "Say you had a nervous breakdown then."

He frowns at the socks, showing his teeth for a second. The two he ends up grabbing aren't even the same size. He rolls them up together anyway.

"What woulda happened to them? Sent to the grandparents? Or someone from temple? Or just dumped in foster care? Or what?"

Elias is confused. "This is just me who's gone, not..." (Does "your mother" mean anything to whoever-this-is?) "...Marc's mother?"

Not-Jake gives him a sharp look from under heavy eyebrows. Then he focuses on the socks again. "Right. Just you, not Wendy."

"Then...you would have stayed with Wendy."

"Yeahhhh," growls Not-Jake. "It fuckin' figures."

He shivers...blinks a bunch...

...then it's Steven looking blankly at the rolls of socks. "Sorry, think I spaced out for a moment. What was I saying?"

Elias rolls back the conversation in his head, trying to pinpoint the switch. "You were telling me about a therapist you thought could talk with us?"

"Oh! I remember now, yeah." Steven picks up one of the definitely-mismatched pairs, pulling them safely apart once more. "Probably best we put off this conversation until then."

☽︎

Elias is in the middle of getting his coat on -- the Davilas invited him over tonight for Shabbat dinner, he's looking forward to Sonya's colorful review of Rabbi Sanders' performance over the past week -- when in the kitchen, where Steven is working on some cooking of his own, Marc's phone chirps with an alert.

Seconds later, in the TV room where Layla's been watching something in Arabic, her phone does too.

Elias tenses, frozen with his coat half-zipped, in case this is bad news...

...then Tommy zips down the stairs, followed by Billy soaring through the air, nearly knocking over Elias as he barrels past. "Is she okay?!"

From around the corner, Marc yells, "Maybe!"

Heart pounding, Elias follows the boys into the kitchen. Layla nearly walks into the dining table as she comes through the doorway from the TV room, eyes glued to her screen. Marc is having the same problem, fumbling one-handed at the stove while the other holds up his phone. Tommy ends up switching the burner off for him.

"We are not jumping to conclusions yet," announces Layla, as Billy hovers (literally) over her shoulder to read alongside her. "She says she's your mother again. We don't assume anything until the telepaths at the Xavier Institute have had a chance to check her out."

Marc, scrolling down his own screen, adds, "Press conference is at six."

"Whoa." Tommy catches Billy's eye. "Maybe we should say a prayer for Grandpa...? Can't argue with results."

☽︎

Of course Elias calls the Davilas to bow out of dinner. (Next week, maybe?) Whether this goes well or badly, he wants to be home for it.

Everyone here is too nervous to eat. Instead of trying to salvage what Steven had going on the stove, Marc produces a set of protein shakes out of the fridge. They gather on the TV room couch, one drink each, and mute the news broadcast until it gets to the part they care about.

"We have to keep in mind this could go badly," Steven cautions them all. "Now we know the person possessing Wanda was Also Wanda, it's sort of odd she hasn't tried to dress up and pass herself off as our version. That is a classic sitcom shenanigan, there."

Marc cuts in: "Don't think she's been in any state for shenanigans, babe."

"Oh, hush, you know what I mean."

If this is real, apparently Professor X is supposed to come back to Earth, and there are code phrases he's supposed to say. Elias wishes he could help listen for them, but Marc and Layla won't tell him what they are. Op-sec.

The anchor in the studio throws to a camera feed from the Institute...

And there's a podium bristling with microphones -- with Charles Xavier behind it, in his famous hovering chair -- and then, behind the chair, Wanda.

She looks subdued, and embarrassed, and far less possessed. No more sunken cheeks or bloodshot eyes. All the charring and cracking is gone from her face. Which is the only skin visible, since she's bundled up in a normal department-store coat and gloves, instead of magically keeping off the cold. If she's using magic at all right now, it's not obvious -- no red glow in sight, no eldritch crown.

Tommy is vibrating like a motor. Billy floats a few inches above his couch cushion.

Cameras flash. The view zooms in. Xavier says he's going to read a prepared statement, and then he'll take questions.

It's very much the inspirational speech Elias expected -- about healing, and supporting each other, and how Wanda wants to help repair the damage her other self caused, and the Institute stands behind her. He finds himself looking at Marc and Layla as much as the screen, waiting for their reaction to the code words they're looking for...

Xavier cuts off mid-sentence. Clears his throat. Closes his eyes.

He's also bundled up to face the cold night weather. Should he really be sweating...?

A line of static skitters across the camera feed.

--No. It's not everything in the shot that fuzzes with static. Just Wanda.

...Xavier's eyes reopen, suddenly gold as a cat's, the skin around them rippling from peach into blue -- a shapechanger, Elias doesn't even know her real name, just that she yells into the microphones, "She has Cerebro, run--!"

Chapter Text

"So...that's it," says Marc, almost in disbelief. "We're out."

Nobody moves.

"Can we block -- whatever Cerebro is?" asks Layla. Not looking at Marc. Or, really, at anyone else in the room...

Tommy turns anxiously to Billy. "Can you block Cerebro? It's a supercomputer -- and we're, like, half supercomputer, right?"

"I don't--" Billy gulps, then turns to Marc. "Can't we just go out-of-range while Not Mom scans? And then come back?"

"Maybe. I don't know." Marc levers himself off the couch. "Just in case: escape protocols. C'mon, rapidito, let's pack."

Tommy zips out. Marc leads the rest of the gathering to the living room at normal speed, where the suitcases -- among other things -- start appearing by the door. He nearly trips on his gym shoes when they get dropped right in front of his feet.

Billy just snaps his fingers, and in the space of a jump-cut he's dressed to travel.

"If you might be leaving, take the books," Elias tells him. "Same as I said last time -- take any ones you want."

Billy does a slow turn, eyes glowing blue. Grabby-hand gestures in different directions pull the books from the afternoon off the coffee table, and bring another half-dozen flying down the stairs. Tommy insta-unzips a suitcase; the books squish down the clothes to stack themselves inside.

"Toys too," adds Elias -- then checks in with Marc and Layla, both tying shoes. "Anything you're okay to carry, they can keep."

Tommy appears in front of Marc, presenting him with a series of playthings in rapid succession. Marc makes fast judgments: yes to a box of Pokémon cards, no to the plastic containers of Gak, yes to a handful of Beanie Babies.

Another couple of those swoop into Billy's hands, and he presents them to...Elias. "We're taking these for Uncle K," he announces. (Marc looks up, startled, opening his mouth to protest--) "He isn't gonna admit he wants them, but he wants them."

"Of course!" Elias doesn't know whether they're mementos for Marc, or playthings for one of the mysterious children in his head -- but either way, they're welcome to Goldie the Goldfish and Baldy the Eagle. "Take them, they're all his."

...Billy gasps, drops the toys, and clutches his head.

Tommy zips over, and Billy immediately grabs him, pressing their foreheads together. "Nope, nope, nope--!"

Layla and Marc flank them, both intently concerned. Layla puts a hand on the crown of Billy's head and starts a chant--

--then a firework of blue sparks shoves everyone away, even Tommy, leaving Billy gasping like he just ran a marathon. "I couldn't--" His voice cracks. "It's too late. She's coming."

"It's okay, buddy." Marc keeps the words steady, though his stress is visible in how roughly he drags a hand through his curls. "We knew that could happen. We'll follow the plan. We got this."

"You shouldn't stay at the house," Layla tells Elias. "We set up some protections at--"

Marc interrupts: "Dad. Come with us."

Elias does a double-take. "What?"

"I told you, our backup place gets lonely. And there's no libraries or bakeries," says Marc apologetically. "But -- it's not all bad. It'll be easier on your knees. And the view is amazing. You've never seen a view like this in your life. Tommy could grab everything you need, and..."

A shift in posture. His eyes get wide and earnest, voice pitching higher:

"You can meet all of us! If you come along, we'll tell you our names, what we look like, our favorite colors, everything!"

He shakes himself, blinking a few times --

"Yeah. That. Whatever she said."

It's so tempting.

Elias doesn't wait for a prompt to hug him this time, just steps forward and holds out his arms. Marc falls into them, clinging, while Elias rubs his back:

"I'm staying, mijo."

Marc swallows, and nods against his shoulder. Gripping handfuls of Elias's shirt, like maybe it'll be okay if he just hangs on tight enough.

The rest of the group darts around them, scooping up the dropped Beanie Babies, pulling out coats. Layla steps into Elias's eyeline while shrugging hers on.

"Protections. We set some up. At the synagogue," she says gently. "And -- sorry to be abrupt about this, but -- at your son's grave. Visiting either place should keep you hidden. Probably don't come back right away, even after she leaves. If there's someone you can call, for--"

It's Elias's turn to interrupt. "No, mija, I'm staying. I'm staying here. I'll be here to meet her."

Dead silence.

Marc pushes Elias back from the hug and grips him by the shoulders. "Dad, that's insane."

Pause. Grimace.

"No, everyone shut up!" he snaps to thin air. "I stand by that. I am this close to just dragging him with us and calling it a 5150!" To Elias again: "You're not magic, not a mutant, you don't have any powers -- what the hell do you think you're gonna accomplish, here?"

Elias switches into full Spanish. He's not sure how much privacy it gives them, but he'll take what he can get. "[She's lost her sons, her whole world ended, she's angry and hurt and she doesn't know what to do with herself. This, you think I can't speak to?]"

Marc answers in mostly-English. "People already tried [speaking to her]. Her dad tried it. You think you can come up with a charismatic inspirational speech about overcoming trauma that Magneto can't?"

"[Magneto hasn't been with her children all this time,]" counters Elias. "[He hasn't seen for himself how scared and sad they are -- how badly they need their real mother back. Maybe he guesses, but he doesn't know.]"

It seems to be sinking in. Marc looks unhappily thoughtful.

Elias cups his face. (Still surprised on some level that it isn't round anymore, that his little boy has a square jaw and a five-o'clock shadow.) "[And -- he doesn't have you.]"

At the plural you, Marc grimaces. "This is helpful how...?"

"[When the twins brought up going to live with this Wanda -- in her sole custody, no other adults around, nobody to run interference for them at all -- I had a breakdown just thinking about it. She can look in my head and see that. Then she can go into the fog -- she's the Scarlet Witch, what does she care about some fog? -- and see all the reasons why.]"

Marc's voice is tightly controlled, eyes wet. "Dad, she's going to shred you into confetti."

"[I never stood between you and what happened to your mother,]" says Elias. "[Let me stand between these boys and what happened to theirs.]"

If that means she turns him into confetti...all right, he'll be confetti.

"Okay," says Marc hoarsely. "Yeah, okay."

He lets go of Elias's shoulders, blinks hard, and steps back.

The boys have their coats on, suitcase handles in hand, grocery bags of what must be leftovers slung over their elbows. Layla has her suitcase and Marc's, plus a sturdy-looking backpack she filled up at some point. Marc's own coat, glowing blue, floats meaningfully next to him.

He doesn't put it on, just hugs it like a child's security blanket, and looks at a spot near the ceiling. "We're ready. Let's go."

...Nothing happens.

Before Elias can start to panic, matching looks of exasperation fall across Marc and Layla's faces. "Seriously?" asks Marc.

Under his breath, Billy explains to Tommy, "He wants a blessing."

Tommy makes a skeptical face. "Do we have time for blessings?"

"Wouldn't you rather have it after we arrive?" That's Steven, negotiating. "Wouldn't it be more, ooh...sacred, or..."

He trails off as the invisible god answers. 

"He says it can be short," Billy tells Tommy. Then, to Steven: "She's not close yet -- we have time for a short one."

"Seems fair to me," says Tommy. Nodding to Elias: "His god gets blessings in here all the time."

Marc sucks in a breath -- then it's Jake, impatiently shrugging the coat on. "Fine. A short one," he huffs. "Rabino, try not to be too offended, ay?"

He kisses his fingertips, and touches a point high in front of him. Like the forehead of somebody invisible (and very tall).

His eyes glow white.

Maybe it's just a magic reverb effect, but it feels like Elias is hearing an overlapping chorus of six or eight alters speaking together:

"Baruch Ata Khonshu, mechayeh ha'metim."

(well, that sure is a choice -- so it's for Khonshu, that name was in Elias's book, bird-headed god of--)

A crescent of brilliant white slices through the air, like the leading edge of the sun coming out from behind an eclipse.

It grows and arcs around to trace a seven-foot circle. The center winks open to reveal a barren silver landscape under a jet-black sky.

(--the Moon.)

Elias stares openmouthed as Jake just...steps through.

Then he gasps. "Oh! I wasn't supposed to look, was I?"

"[Don't worry about it,]" says Jake, turning to survey his position on The Actual Moon. "She can know we're here. By the time she catches up, we'll be somewhere else. Whole lotta moons in the universe -- we got options."

"Atmosphere's holding?" asks Layla, all practicality. "We're good to go?"

"Yeah. All set."

The boys lift their baggage across the threshold...then, once it's all piled neatly on the moon (the actual moon, there's an entire crater right there), jump back into the room. Elias finds himself wrapped in another hug, this time with two skinny sets of arms.

"Tell her we need our mom, okay?" pleads Tommy, heart-rendingly urgent. "Tell her we're really sorry about the bad stuff that happened in her universe, but she's gotta let Mom go. This isn't okay. She's gotta stop."

"Of course, rapidito."

In a smaller voice, Billy adds, "Tell her we'll forgive her if she stops."

"I'll show her, brujito. I'll remember this. She'll see it," promises Elias. "Be good for Marc and Layla, okay? And Steven, and Jake, and -- everyone else."

Sniffles, but fervent nods.

Jake (?) has come up behind them, some object cupped against his chest. Elias catches his gaze, then spreads a hand over the crown of each twin's head -- that's all the hands he has, but at least this time he's meeting Marc's eyes when he gives (an abbreviated version of) the blessing for sons. "Yesimcha Elohim k'Ephraim v'chi-Menashe."

The twins answer with...a line from the psalm they said for Wanda yesterday, the one to bless someone going into a magic battle. "Elohim bekirba, bal-timot, ya'azreha Elohim, lifnot boker."

(Elias is not going to cry. They won't get out of here fast enough if he starts crying.)

When they let Elias go, Marc (?) hustles them back through the portal, then -- oh good, this is definitely Marc: "Here, Dad, take this."

Elias automatically accepts whatever he's being offered...and finds Marc pressing a baseball-sized moon rock into his hand.

"I can't--!" he stammers, as Marc folds his fingers around it and clasps them in place. "Doesn't NASA have rules against this...?"

A small, satisfied smile breaks across Marc's face. A bit of the reverb comes back to his voice as he intones, "We are the highest and only priest of this sacred ground. We outrank NASA."

(Not exactly an accountant. Hah!)

"Walk somewhere with it," he adds. "Doesn't have to be far. Where's your cane?" (Elias points -- he was going to take it to dinner, it's still waiting by the front door.) "What else, what else..."

Behind him, now framed in the portal with Layla against a star-strewn night sky, Billy sucks in a breath through his teeth. "Okay, now we gotta go."

Marc walks backward in that direction, not taking his eyes off Elias. "You can still come with us," he says, when he has one foot over the threshold. "Last call."

Elias shakes his head. "It's okay. [Let me do this.] Los amo, mijo."

It's the last thing he has a chance to say, before the scene gets swallowed by another crescent of light, and the whole thing winks shut.

☽︎

Elias puts on his coat and gloves. Gathers up his cane and Actual Moon Rock. And, technically, travels out to his front steps.

It's not so freezing that the snow stays on the pavement, though there's a dusting of it across the grass. The night sky is still overcast. If there's a moon, it's hidden behind the clouds.

There's something lighting them up in the east -- but it's red.

Elias pauses on the sidewalk to wait for her. Then, remembering how many people in the past week have scolded him about staying upright too long, leans with both arms on the black metal railing.

Another figure leans on the railing just above him.

There's a heart-stopping moment where Elias is sure he's been joined by Wendy's ghost.

Then his eyes adjust, and, oh, it's obviously someone else. She does have the same skin tone as Wendy, the same long dark hair -- but her face is different, and she's so much younger. (Also, even when she was young, Wendy never did her makeup that...striking.)

She's wearing a sort of Ren Faire dress, green with white trim, done up in fancy embroidered leaf patterns...and much too light for this weather. No coat at all.

"Are you real?" asks Elias.

(If, by some wild chance, his brain did make extra people who went completely unnoticed until now...this would be their last chance to say hello.)

"Hah! [I get that a lot,]" says the stranger. In a casual Spanish/English mix, with a roguish smile. "[About as real as it gets, yeah.] We've never met, but I know your kid."

Oh -- one of Marc's superhero friends. Elias tries to remember if he's seen her face on the news...

"And your wife," continues the stranger. "Had a few appointments with your older kid, but [he keeps standing me up.]"

Oh.

Oh.

Elias tightens his grip on the moon rock. (Khonshu, who gives life to the dead--)

"So," he says out loud. "I don't make it out of this."

"[You might,]" says his companion with a shrug. "But even in the best-case scenario, you will be cutting it real close. What the poets call a un paso de la muerte."

(Sure enough, there's exactly one cement step between Elias's feet and hers.)

"Which means either way, I get to show up...see what happens...and pass it on to, let's say, other interested parties."

Well. At least if Elias lives, he'll have his own super-celebrity-encounter story to tell.

"Is there any point to me being here at all?" he asks, raising his face to the sky again. "Or is it better if I just...get out of the way, and let your friends with the real plans get on with it?"

The horizon to the east is fully red now. Like a sunrise gone horribly wrong.

(He could still run. The car is right there, keys are in his pocket, the graveyard is a five-minute drive if he makes all the lights. If his chance of making any difference here is so slim, why stay...?)

([Real easy, isn't it? Just don't notice. Just look away.])

"[This only ends if someone either kills her...]" La Muerte, Death herself, gestures to the sky. As if there was any doubt who she meant. "[...or gets through to her.] I know where to find all the beings on this planet who have [a chance in hell] of doing the first one. I don't even know where to look for anyone else who has the faintest hope of doing the second one."

She switches from Spanglish into Hebrew:

"Lo alecha ham'lacha ligmor, v'lo ata ben chorim l'hibatil mimena."

Ah. It's like that, is it.

You are not required to finish the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.

"Thank you," says Elias softly.

He thinks about all the years of soothing outbursts, sweeping away messes, patching up cuts, telling himself it was enough. He thinks about little Marc flinching whenever his mother picked up a belt or a dish, and adult Marc warning if someone tries to hit them, they're allowed to hit back. He thinks about hiding in a dark closet from a storm-sized monster while the twins chant that's not our mom, and hugging Wendy while she sobs I just want my son.

In the distance, he can make out one bright spark against the glow. Moving through the red like a shooting star on a mission.

Scenes and memories blur together. Elias pictures a terrified Billy and Tommy bolting up the stairs while he restrains Wendy from chasing after them, and a tiny serious Steven pleading tell her we'll forgive her if she stops.

The first flicker of psychic attention passes over his mind. Scarlet and furious and desperate with an all-too-familiar grief.

Elias holds his son's last gift against his heart, and doesn't look away, and stands ready to do the work.