Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

With Alice’s death, it’s as if a veil had been lifted.

Whatever magical divide that lay between him and the other witches had begun to crack. He thought he had misunderstood Agatha.

Teen—

No.

Billy.

Billy thought his memories had been messed with, warped by fear and magic meant to protect him. She always protected him—even when she couldn’t. Her spell still lasted even after her death...if she was even dead.

Billy didn’t believe Death when She told him.

The Scarlet Witch was the most powerful being in the multiverse. Death was a doorway and nothing more—and Billy was her son.

He told Rio to fuck off.

Now Agatha.

Agatha.

He and his mother may be alike, but she never would have been so forgiving as he was. Maybe he got that from his father. He wasn’t completely sure. He couldn’t remember him that well and what he did was an echo—a magical remnant of his father.

You could say that the Maximoffs weren’t very good at dying.

That’s why he was on this Road in the first place.

He wanted to find his family.

From the moment he woke up in that car accident in East View, he had been searching. Billy had tried everything. Maybe even a couple of things that left his hands dirty. None of the books he read had been as filthy and corrupting as the Dark Hold. Had his mother not destroyed it, she would have come back from an early grave to murder him for even glancing at it.

He's not sure what Agatha would have done.

He didn’t need to be taken under her wing. She is simply another corrupted witch blinded by greed and power. That’s what he told himself when he found her. Had Billy not needed answers or her aid he would have left her there to rot for eternity. He had prepared himself for her betrayal and worse. His memories of what she did to him and her brother three years ago in Westview painted an ugly image. But then they found their coven—they went on the path, faced countless trials together and he thought…well he thought he had misjudged her.

It's like the Ballad says, on the Road: “All that’s wrong is right, and all that’s bad is good.”

It didn’t matter how powerful the Witches Road was—he was the heir of the Scarlett Witch. Not even the Dark Hold could warp his sense of right and wrong—murder was wrong. It didn’t matter for what reason.

He wasn’t his mother.

She murdered people to get to him and Tommy. She hurt people to bring back their father. Billy was willing to hurt people as long as he knew he would get to the end of his path. If it meant finding Tommy at the end…

He didn’t need to kill people to do so. He didn’t need to steal other witch’s powers. Their power was filthy and tainted—he didn’t want it.

Billy was The Wiccan.

He didn’t need it.

His need for Agatha was slowly becoming a thinning thread every second. She looked at him. She looked at him as the thread thinned and the veil slipped.

He looked at her, his hands behind his back clenching, sparking with magical embers.

He was barely hiding his Blue at this rate, Agatha had power again—power she stole.

She murdered Alice.

Billy hadn’t been this furious-not for a while.

“How could you kill her?” He practically flew after Harkness, the witch stamping backward, arms at the ready—tainted with colors of orange and red—colors that were not hers.

“I-I couldn’t control it,” she said, stammering, lying.

His brows furrowed and he said, “Yes, you could have. Don’t lie to me.”

Agatha took a moment to look at Billy, her face worn by the road, trying to veil deceit, “I’m not,” she said.

Lying to him, lying to herself, it didn’t matter.

This had to stop.

His anger snapped, flaring as he clamped down on that Blue of his. It was always getting him into trouble. Hold it down, Billy. Stay under the Sigil, stay under the spell.

“You wanted her power,” he said, voice strangled, emotions betraying him, “That’s what this has always been about for you, isn’t it?”

“Of course it is,” Jen said from behind them.

They turned to look at the Potion’s Witch, who didn’t bother concealing anything, “That’s what all this is about,” she said to him, turning to Agatha, “For any of us.”

Something like disappointment came for him. He watched the other witch walk away, Lila passing by him for pointless sage wisdom, but definitely not comfort, “Death comes for us all.”

Death was here already.

Death meant nothing to Billy, whether he was a Maximoff or a Kaplan. Hierarchies and rules? Other witches served these principles but to him they were worthless.

“So that’s what it means to be a witch?” He asked unhappily, “Killing people to serve your own agenda?”

The teenager would say that killing was beneath all witches but that would be a lie. He was young and naïve, he knew that but how low must expectations be for these people? For his kin. He was still Wiccan, he was still in this coven, magic was his to claim—he was born from an Infinity Stone and the shard of a demon—he was her son.

Maybe for a brief moment, he wished that Agatha…well maybe he wished that she meant something more.

Agatha refused to answer his question.

To Hell with the lies then.

“No,” he said firmly, deciding, “Not for me,” he shook his head and began to walk away. Agatha watched his body language change and latched onto something. Something beyond the veil.

Purple mixed with orange and red—stolen—flared up behind his eyes. His Blue. Hekate Help his inexperience. He didn’t care anymore. Maybe that’s what this was about.

Let her see.

Come and get me, witch.

This didn’t help the fear rising as she stilled, growing closer as she studied him. After a moment, her eyes glimmered knowingly, smiling. She tilted her head as if to say, ‘Really? Come on, you hypocrite.’

She knew then…and she thought it was funny.

The woods on the Witches Road seemed to spin a little as Agatha began laughing.

She grew closer as it did so, smile eerie and warped and wrong—don’t move, stand your ground, Billy.  

This wasn’t his Agatha.

…

Or was it?

Was this what power did to people?

Did a mere spark of it turn you into this?

The old witch’s breath rang loudly in his ear, his neck feeling dirty all of a sudden, she whispered, “Are you sure?”

Wiccan’s pride took over his fear, his survival instincts coming through.

A memory from a distant dream echoed at the fringes of his magic, muddy yet clear, ‘Dream walking you hypocrite!’

She would want him to stand his ground. So, he did.

Even when Agatha forked two fingers underneath his chin he didn’t back down. His pride lifted his chin willingly, a pair of dark eyes locking, the tension growing steadily.

Then whatever affection he had for this woman was destroyed in six words, “You’re so much like your mother.”

Billy couldn’t breathe.

Agatha’s disturbing smile only grew.

Why couldn’t he breathe?

Why would she…

No.

She…how could she possibly know that? Agatha wasn’t that powerful, was she? Even with the barest sparks of power…she still knew.

She knew.

Agatha let go of him, eyes gleeful.

She knew.

The witch began to walk away, down a sort of path of the winding wood.

Billy couldn’t move.

He couldn’t breathe.

“Come,” she said.

This wasn’t fair—why did she have to die? Why did they all have to die?

Agatha then turned to him, adding, “Pet.”

Wiccan’s Blue pushed against its confines, breaking free.

His anger harnessed it in both hands, electrifying underneath chipped black nails and his mother’s rings.

Apart of him realized his powers were on display for all to see but he didn’t care. They had belittled and underestimated him—no more.

Billy was more than capable of putting these old crones into their places…so he would.

As his magic reached out and took hold of their minds, casting a fury-driven hex in his own, Billy took control. He wouldn’t let their greed and power keep him from the end of the Road. Tommy was at the end of the Road. All this infighting and backstabbing and killing had to stop.

Death could take the day off, Wiccan decided. A blue ornate crown spiraled, appearing on his forehead, as if acknowledging the Lost Prince.

A pentagram formed in the swamp, quickly building the dimensions of a Hex.

It was time for Billy’s Trial.

Chapter Text

The swamp bed bubbled and brewed underneath the blood moon. The winds swiftly changed the tides, casting dark clouds over it.

The Witch’s Road twisted and curved, the magic finally quiet, the voices whispering through it fading. Watching. Waiting.

Leaves fell back, skirting over the swamp, over roots and trees, latching onto whatever they could.

He traveled by night using a simple spell, one that left paw prints behind off the beaten path.

Billy had to move swiftly, he wasn’t sure if the Road would accept the hex as a viable loophole to death.

His wolf form blended into the shadows, the path in front of him illuminated in blue. The blood moon was transforming into a new moon, which meant the next trial was coming.

Billy hopped over a log, quietly and quickly using it as a bridge.

The young witch felt The Road resisting him.

He could feel the rest of his coven within the hex, so he pushed them down tighter, building a stronger, more complex spell to bury them inside.

The Road led him around in a circle.

He was stubborn. Much too stubborn for his good so he cast a couple of spells for guidance, changing his direction.

Left.

Right.

Forward and backward.

Diagonal.

Hekate knows going up was a no-go, considering he already ditched his coven.

No matter what the witchling did, Billy found himself right back to start, in front of the swamp.

Funny.

He growled, ears pricking as a twig snapped in the shadows.

“Uh oh. We’re not lost, are we?”

Billy stood, transforming back into his witch form, blue crown gone. Blood and dirt still covered him from head to foot. Without bothering to look, he asked unhappily, “Where were you?”

Rio sauntered to a stop next to him, “You know where I was,” she said, glancing around the woods, “Where’s Agatha?”

Billy replied smartly, “You know where she is.”

Rio huffed back a laugh, the act not matching the expression in her eyes. She said, “You’re playing with fire, baby boy.”

He stiffened his spine, lifting his chin just as he did with Agatha. He said, “Well, it’s a good thing I have Death Herself as a part of my coven then, don’t I?”

Now Rio laughed genuinely.

“I knew I liked you,” she said, pointing her twisted blade, “Most witches would be terrified to have me as a part of their coven. It’s kind of a bad omen.”

Wiccan gestured around them, saying informationally, “The Road loops back around to the swamp. We’re trapped here.”

Rio raised her eyebrows, fingers pricking the tip of the metal, she said, “You have unfinished business here, Your Highness. It’s just as you said: you’re a part of the coven.”

He didn’t take the bait she laid out for him, but made it obvious he wasn’t impressed by this, “Guess you’re stuck with me a little bit longer,” he said.

She looked up towards the sky, and said, “I think this one’s yours.”

Billy looked up at her, the full-blood moon replaced by a new moon.

The last of its light went out, the curve of the moon thinning to darkness. A chill fell into the breeze as shadows covered its path.

An owl hooted and flapped its wings in the trees.

Speaking of ill omens.

Blessings and burdens alike, he thought.

The pair turned their attention back towards the swamp, a trap door blazoned with blue, opening up inside the muddy pit, leading down a winding staircase.

The Witches Road was nothing if not subtle.

Curses.

It looked almost identical to the staircase in Agatha’s basement.

Down it was, he thought.

Billy took a step closer.

“Careful,” Rio said, “Your family has a bad history with hexes like these. You may not like what you find.”

Blue sparked in the palms of his hands, lighting up in his eyes as he looked down towards the staircase, “I’ll take the risk,” he said without fear.

Death grinned ear to ear, pupils turning to pinpricks, she said, “That’s the spirit.”

They watched the dusty staircase continue to spiral downwards, “Leave the door open,” he told her.

Rio’s shoulders touched his and said, happily, “Wouldn’t dream of it happening any other way.”

Agatha’s magic woke before she could.

Purple flared at the base of her skull as she sat up violently, ready to throw hands and claws and spit and whatever she could toward her enemies.

Instead, the woman slammed her head onto something hard and metal.

 A series of curses that violated natural law escaped her lips, nearly bleeding from the sheer force of the impact.

Agatha snarled, asking, “Where the Hell am I?” She couldn’t see two inches past her nose, if she could even see that far it would be a blessing.

Her purple magic burned to life ( orange-red—stolen ), showcasing a small metal bin.

This wasn’t a casket.

Long nails traced the edges, eyes searching, searching for answers, for solutions.

Teen, she finally recalled.

Why that little…

The witch’s cry of outrage echoed in her confinement, knees smashing into the sides. Her newly restored magic dulled the pain. She let the recent turn of events blind the guilt trickling at the back of her mind.

Guilt was for suckers and losers, she didn’t have time for it.

It was then that she saw the body tag on her toe. The dullness of the color purple made it barely eligible to read . Right under the Westview librarian book selection, underneath the names W. Maximoff and A. Harkness came a blurring block of letters that cut and switched, transforming.

After a moment, it settled upon a name, blossoming in permanent ink.

Agatha kicked again, letting loose a tantrum that was a long time coming.

“Mother, Maiden, Crone when I get my hands on him!” She roared purple bursting at the seams, uselessly trying to push against the confines of her prison.

Jen knew not to trust the familiars of traitorous witches, but she let her guard down with this one. Divine Mother, she prided herself on her gut and instincts.

She wasn’t surprised by Agatha’s betrayal, but Teen’s show of power…

She spent her whole life looking over her shoulder for Death, watching, waiting, and protecting herself the best she could as a bound witch. So, when a filthy little miscreant with a strange sigil took control of her mind and flung her to her death to suffocate inside a swamp hole…well. She didn’t have time to react let alone fight back. She was hundreds of years old, all of them were. Yet all three had been single-handedly overpowered by a sixteen-year-old boy with a spell book and eyeliner.

All Jen knew now was that she couldn’t breathe.

Claw your way out , the voices screamed.

Left.

Right.

Forward and backward.

Diagonal.

It made no difference where she was. Up could have been down for all intents in purposes. She prayed to the Divine Mother.

This was not how she died. Not at the clumsy hands of this…mall goth miscreant.

The Potion’s Master focused that intention to the surface.

The Earth gave way, bones snapping, pulling, and twisting through the tight dimensional spaces, a bright blue flaring at the base of her skull.

Jen inhaled the fresh air as if it was the last thing she did.

She clawed her way to the surface, the grass and dirt ripping apart as her body came up through it.

She was met by a bright blue sky, replacing the perpetual night they were under. Jen looked around desperately, breathing heavily.

Where am I?

She was back in the suburbs of Westview.

That’s impossible.

Jen saw children playing on their bikes in the distance, and a mail carrier flinging newspapers to people’s yards.

She shivered and trembled in rage, the impossible settling before her eyes. She inhaled deeply, rage consuming her, “What the f—"

Chapter Text

"He's been like this ever since the accident."

Carving. Scratching. Mapping.

“Billy?”

Carving. Scratching. Mapping.

A woman’s voice joined the man. She leaned down towards his level on the floor.

“Billy, can you hear me?”

The chalk hovered over the floor, and black eyes flicked about, unseeing.

Mapping.

He pressed it onto the floor once more.

“What’s wrong with him?”

Carving.

Scratching.

Mapping.

“We don’t know. Some kind of traumatic response we think. He goes in and out of lucidity, usually going on and on about witches and hexes,” the man said.

The chalk line pulled to the right.

She asked quietly, “Does he ever mention her?”

Diagonal, down to the left.

His movements grew more focused. Mapping larger. Wider.

“Not since it first happened eight months ago.”

Billy muttered, humming, the noise distracting. His eyes flickered about, moving the chalk line to the top left, yanking down diagonally to the right.

Up, go up.  

He rocked himself back and forth.

The man paused momentarily, his voice emotional as he said, “He uh…he pulled himself out of the car after…after it uh went into the tree…”

It moved upwards, scratching violently, leaning ever so slightly to the left.

“—His injuries should have killed him. Billy Kaplan had a 20% survival rate and yet he got out of the car, wandered around the woods, shouting for God knows how long, saying…”

Billy’s chalk hovered, slowly, ever so slowly carved diagonally down to the left.

Down.

“Saying what?”

Down.

“He said that his mother left him. He said that she had left him behind in Westview.”

Down.

The man continued, “Billy said that we had to tell his mother he was still alive.”

The boy stopped, looking upwards.

They didn’t notice immediately.

Black chipped fingers bit into the stick, snapping it in half.

A familiar man with large glasses and a bald head stood to his right next to a middle-aged woman with shoulder-length auburn hair.

The boy tilted his head, staring at it for a moment.

They noticed him.

“Billy?” The woman was one of the doctors. A psychiatrist. She moved closer, leaning down, face overtly sympathetic, “I’m Amanda Jones, I’m one of the specialists they brought in from New York. Do you know where you are?”

Billy took a moment, before opening up his mouth to speak, “Per multa milеs dolis atque probationibus.”

She looked confused.

When she looked back over her shoulder to the male doctor, he sighed, shaking his head. She looked back when he continued.

Billy’s eyebrows furrowed and continued, “Errant nos tibi altus et humilis.”

“It’s Latin,” the man explained, “He does this sometimes. Not very often. Just on his more lucid days.”

Dr. Jones stared at Billy in disbelief, asking, “This is him when he’s lucid?”

Billy didn’t respond to their comments or conversation, pulling his interest towards his drawing on the floor. He pushed back a couple of feet, onto his knees. He picked up the broken chalk and started to draw a circle around it.

“ Cica metus, janua apparet,” he mumbled under his breath.

She asked, “How do you know he’s speaking Latin?”

“Had a translator come in after a while to confirm his doctor’s suspicions. It’s always the same ten-odd phrases over and over,” he said, attention drawing to the floor in the center of the room.

“Venit tempus ut,” Billy said with finality, finishing the circle.

Dr. Jones stared in disbelief, carefully standing back away from the wall, “Oh my God,” she said.

“That’s one way to put it.”

The two doctors stood by the wall of the private hospital room, eyes centered on the massive Pentagram.

Billy studied it, eyes glazed over. Mapping. Watching. Waiting.

Dr. Jones found her voice after a moment, asking him, “What is he saying?”

The man looked toward her, saying after a moment, “It’s about a road. Just…a road.”

“Oh my God,” she said and then jumped when the chalk lines sizzled with smoke in response.

Billy mumbled something under his breath, suspiciously like English.

The man asked like he didn’t hear it the first time, “What was that?”

The boy’s brows furrowed and his lips pressed into a line, eyes somehow focused yet unseeing, voice determined, “I want the Scarlet Witch .”

Dr. Jones took a moment, “I think he might need a new doctor.”

“Uh-huh.”

Agatha couldn’t tell you how long she spit, kicked, and screamed, pitting magic against her metal coffin/prison.

A lot longer than your average 400-year-old witch ought to take.

She would never admit to falling asleep after the millionth assault but how else could one explain waking up in an even tighter prison, suffocating inside whatever cheap suitcase this was?

Agatha ripped a hand through the top, the zipper breaking, flying to pieces as she sat up, furious.

“Where in the Hell am I?” she asked, spitting, assessing her situation.

New clothes. Tan. Boring. Currently sitting inside a body bag, finally outside the drawer of what looked like a morgue.

She took a moment and said, “Okay. Never seen this one before.”

The morgue was closed off, and the entry room was made of cement, metal, and padding.

She picked herself off the table in the boring clothes and adjusted her hair before examining the room, “Wonder whose trial this could be.”

Agatha turned around before seeing something appear on a metal slab in the middle of the room. Rather than cluttered with surgical tools, it was filled with pictures from the crime scene.

What are you doing here?

She grew closer, suspicious, not worried at all.

“You’re the pictures from…” Agatha traced long nails over them, saying, “The crime scene in the woods. How is this possible?”

Warped contortions, black fingers, an unmarked grave. Deployed airbags in Eastview.

A beep sounded from the corner.

She looked over, the clock already started.

“Okay,” she sniffed, dropping the photos ungracefully. She grinned ear to ear, laughing, clapping her hands, “You wanted my attention? You got it.”