Title: Right Through Me
Summary: When most of your life is spent living in the background, it can be a bit intimidating to be thrust to the forefronts of a dramatic narrative. Luckily, Tamika Maihi is a self insert, so you can trust her to always recover from a tragic backstory. — SI, gen.
Rating: M
Words: 2,475
Warnings: Non-explicit mentions of substance (drug) abuse and gambling addiction!
Disclaimer: Disclaimed
Under 21s rugby. That's where he is right now. Four years, that's how long it took: one to spiral, half of one to get help, half to relapse, one to quit lying to himself and build a steady foundation. Only just shutting the door on his teen years and he was a recovering drug addict; only he could.
"Maihi, with me!"
Or maybe he was just lying to himself. Maybe he wasn't that special after all and being a teenage drug addict slash rugby prodigy isn't rare at all. Maybe this wasn't a darkness he came upon honestly. Maybe it was forced on him and he wore it awkwardly, like a shirt two sizes too small. Maybe he had been low and this— sports, the ambiguous 'it', everything— offered a temporary high and he was still an addict after all. Maybe he was humoring everyone.
By now, any attempt at happiness was half-hearted and reality would forever be blurred at the edges (just enough so he didn't have to care as much), but that had never mattered.
It did now: It had to.
"Yeah, Coach, coming!"
Like the drugs, this, too— devoting himself to cleanliness, existing in sobriety, doing better than his own standards— wasn't a choice. Meaningful choices died with his father.
Dad and Tamika are gone for six months before they hear anything about either of them.
A bombing, they were told. Sokovia is a war zone, they were told. You have my condolences.
(As if condolences stopped his little sister from being blown up.)
Mum fell off first. Gambling and shit. Put them right in debt in what seemed like no time at all: it was a sour goodbye to long showers and new shoes and school excursions.
Willmarr fell next. Found a new crowd, found a new kick, discovered a plant that burned away at the guilt and misery for as long as you held it in your lungs. Willmarr dragged Liam down with him in the kindest way possible for someone to: he offered Liam a choice with no strings attached. It wasn't his fault he didn't know that there wasn't a choice. No good choices. Not for Liam, anyway.
(Don't leave.)
Erik didn't fall. He was too good for it. Too stubborn. He was like dad that way. It was for the best. If he were anymore like mum, they wouldn't have survived— but they do. Achingly, resentfully, resisting every inch they are dragged, they survive. It's all because of Erik that they make it through it.
He shouldn't have had to pull them past the finish line. Liam knows that. He isn't so far gone that he doesn't understand that Erik was too young for what his family forced him to do, but he can't figure out where to even begin regarding the effort to reclaim Erik's childhood for him. So he apologizes every way except verbally and hopes it is enough.
(It isn't. He knows it isn't, but he's been inactive so long that action is such a daunting thing on the horizon — he can't risk the storm. Not again.)
Tamika is alive.
She's right there, he can see her. They can all see her. She's there; panting, sweating, mouth moving and arms working and, oh God, she's so viciously alive. She's wearing a green plaid bush jacket two sizes too big for her. He knows it. He's seen it in his own wardrobe. (She still has it, she's kept it all this time, she hasn't forgotten about him— oh god, how could he have given up on her when she hasn't given up on them—)
It's her.
It's her.
How can she be alive? How could they not have noticed? What is she doing still in Sokovia? What is she doing, fighting for Sokovia?
What, what, what?
The news coverage consists of shaky footage from cheap phones with bad cameras. That doesn't mean Liam doesn't know who the lenses are pointed at. A wheeze and a blur of red. Iron Man. A roar and trembling earth. Hulk. A song and thunder. Thor. A hiss and a crackle. Tamika.
"My baby, my baby girl, that's my baby girl," Mum's babbling. She's clinging to Willmarr's arm. Erik is clinging to hers. Where Mum is wailing, Erik's grief is silent. Cautious; Liam's little sister is alive, and she's a superhero.
(What.)
Tamika doesn't reappear in the news and she doesn't reappear into their lives. Liam wonders if the familiar girl in the videos was really her at all. He keeps the doubts to himself. Erik and Mum are certain that Ghost is Tamika, and with the way Erik's hands shake whenever he reaffirms it, Liam's opinion is the last thing his resolve needs.
So. Tamika's alive. But she isn't here with them.
For some reason, the idea that she's chosen to stay away is almost as bad as her being dead.
The televisions are the ones they rely on for news.
It is the television that confirms what Liam isn't sure he actually knows.
Individuals Wanda Maximoff, a.k.a "Scarlet Witch" and Tamika Maihi, a.k.a. "Ghost," have now been officially declared fugitives by Secretary of Defense, Blahblahblah Ross…
Maihi.
Tamika Maihi.
It's her. She's alive. She really is alive.
"A criminal," Erik echoes, voice flat. "That's bullshit."
Mum doesn't clip him for the language. Obviously, she agrees.
The American station shows a picture of Wanda Maximoff in the middle of a Sokovian protest against American intervention. She's holding a boy's hand and screaming. She doesn't look like a superhero — she looks like a rioter. Liam's stomach sinks. The picture fades and he already knows, he already knows—
The next picture is his baby sister wearing a threadbare grey nightgown, background flat concrete. There's something thick and restricting around her throat. Her hair, thick and curly in Liam's memories, hangs dry and frizzy. Her lips are chapped. She looks like she hasn't slept in a year.
She looks like a criminal.
They all fall silent at the presence of the only clear picture they have of Tamika. At the media's flagrant disregard of her privacy. At their lack of respect for her. The audacity, he thinks, suddenly furious, to broadcast his sister like she's some fucking thug and not the reason Sokovia didn't drop like a meteor and wipe out the human race.
How dare they.
They wait for her. She is their sister and their daughter and their family and they wait for her.
She doesn't show up, she never shows up, but Liam has spent too long thinking that his little sister is dead when she's not been, when she has been halfway across the road being tortured, and they wait. Quietly. Patiently.
It's faith, he thinks. A new thing for this family. Hope, faith, all that cliche shit— and he doesn't usually care for it, is the thing, because losing half the family makes a guy cynical in all sorts of expected and unexpected ways. Except they lost and gained (kind of) one of them back, and it's a miracle, is what that is. It's a miracle, because deep down Liam knows they don't deserve it, knows that they might not have treated her right the first time and the fact that they've been given a second chance is by the grace of God, knows that there's a high probability that he's going to fuck up twice and then she'll never come back—
But until then, he can wait. He can start believing in faith and hope and prayers if it gives him one more miracle.
You brought her back to life, so do me one more solid and bring her home.
It's lunch. Willmarr is cleaning the yard, Erik is painting the fence, Mum is tending to the garden, and Liam is inside refilling the cordial jug when there's three knocks on the door. It's a busy Sunday, but even so, while Liam isn't excited about talking to some salesman, he can't just ignore the door.
He opens it, and nothing could have prepared him for who awaits him on the other side; cordial smashes all over the floor.
Tamika stands in the doorway of their home like she's unsure of her welcome, outfitted in a green plaid bush shirt too big for her. She's tall; a lot taller in real life. Liam's thrilled to note that he's still taller. There are scars. There are... lots of scars, almost too many to count. Deep bags under her eyes. Her hair is tied back in a way Liam can't remember it ever being.
The Scarlet Witch is there, too. Holding her hand. Liam thinks, she isn't yours, but can't linger on the thought.
Tamika, he thinks, but he can't speak at all. He stares. It's all he can do. Ghost, is her nickname. It's accurate. She was dead. She was dead and then she was alive and then she was a dream and now she's here, standing in the door, fiddling with the ends of his shirt and staring everywhere but at his eyes.
"Hey," Tamika mutters. She shifts, looks at the Witch, then back at Liam's feet. Her voice is so deep now, but still higher than Erik, who is conquering his puberty right now. She's still his little sister. "Uh, I— I don't know if—"
Whatever she's about to say, Liam can't say he cares one bit about it. He moves purely on instinct, not wondering if those new scars go deeper than the skin. He throws his arms around his baby sister like its an attack and hugs her tight enough that he can forget for a moment that he ever thought she was dead. He thinks he should say something like welcome home or about time or literally anything, anything, because it has to be better than his silence, right? Nothing comes to mind.
He squeezes her until he's convinced that she's real, and then finds it in himself to hold her tighter when he feels her body heave with sobs.
Welcome home. About time. We've been waiting.
"Don't leave again," is what comes out, and the words — don't leave, don't leave, don't leave, what's keeping me here? — must have weighed as heavily on her as they did on him, because her knees give out, and for the first time since he initiated it, his little sister hugs him back. She's crying. Ugly, loud sobs that are coming from someplace deep inside of her. She hugs him back and she cries and for the first time in his life, Liam understands her.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to stay away—"
"Just stay," Liam tells her. Whatever happened before doesn't matter. What happened before was that she died. She's alive now. That's all that matters. She's here.
She's done the hard part. Now all Liam and his family have to do is give her a reason to stay.
(Liam helps her with her suitcase as her dad gets into the truck. It's 2am and freezing cold, so he gives her his over-sized flannel coat and doesn't say a word about it. The others wait at the doorstep, silent like they're in mourning.
She closes the trunk and refuses to meet his eyes, but despite her best efforts, she can't pretend that he isn't crying. He's being quiet about it but he can't stop sniffing.
When he speaks, his voice is small and thin. It isn't a tone she's ever heard on him before. "Don't leave." He mutters, just like he used to do when he was a kid. He meets her eyes for a fraction of a second before he looks at his shoes. "It isn't too late to change your mind."
Tamika has never been encouraged to speak her mind at the expense of others. There is something in her body blending her insides, and it's odd, because her stomach is turning and her throat is clogged but her blood runs cold and her bones are like steel. She is heavy with the grief of leaving her family behind but her heart feels hollow. She is both the chaos and the calm. The feelings conflict and turn her brain to mush. She doesn't have it in her to be self-conscious about her words at this point.
She hunches in on herself and replies, "What's keeping me here?"
Liam looks hurt. He keeps his eyes on the ground. "We are," He says in a strained voice. "Us. Your family."
"And if I stay? What then?" She knows that after the novelty of her remaining wears off, things will go right back to the way they were. Perhaps with more animosity, at best. If she leaves, she will not be able to feel their resentment with the oceans between them. If she turns back and lets that plane take off without her, she will forever be the pariah.
"Don't worry, Li," She rubs her nose and steps away, eyes burning but face stony. She wants to cry but her body won't let her. "You won't miss me much."
And the only way she could say that without breaking down was because it was true. He was good at ignoring her when she was there; it would be the easiest thing in the world to do it when she wasn't.
And so, in a few short hours, Tamika and her father board a plane to Sokovia.)
.
Authors Note:
Interlude about the family! Got a bit bored, wrote this before boarding my plane, and here we go. It's messy and I do apologize for that!
