cross the line
maximoff siblings, he’s always been the odd one out
from the moment he was born, he had been a fighter. he had to fight for his life just barely two weeks after he had come out from the womb, hooked up to a hundred different machines, all trying to save him. he doesn’t remember any of it. his father tells him stories about seeing this little baby wrapped in wires, and his mother sometimes brings it up in their calls and his sister seems to remember vague stories and such from their parents, considering she’s barely two years older than him.
he doesn’t know if the stories are true. there are pictures and all the reports that prove it’s true but, he doesn’t feel like a fighter.
as he grew up, it was clear to him and to everyone around him that the younger maximoff sibling was different. his father was a hero, his sister a carbon copy and he ... he was just sebastian. there was nothing special about him yet, and despite neither him or dalena showing any sign of their father’s power manifesting in them, she was much more like him personality-wise. both of them were loud and comical, not afraid to have the attention on them and he, well he found himself gravitating towards the corners of the room, the exterior, leaving altogether.
he had never liked being the center of attention, nor attention in general and he finds he doesn’t mind when they’re with people they don’t know.
but when their dad gives his sister more attention ... yeah, he’s kind of jealous.
he overhears his sister and his dad talking one day, when he’s just finished bathing and he’s heading back to his room. he backpedals to the stairs once he hears his name.
dad, there’s something wrong with sebastian, he hears dalena say, all seriousness in her tone and it’s like something just clicks in his mind. he had never realized it, ever, not until someone had pointed it out and maybe, maybe she was right. maybe there was something wrong with him, maybe something had happened with their mutant genetics as it was passed onto him, maybe he was just messed up, broken, irreparable. we have to fix him, okay?
he turns away from the stairs, stepping quietly back into his room and locking the door before he climbs into his bed, curling up under the covers in the dark. he holds himself in the fetal position, staring at the wall across from him even as his dad calls him down for dinner. he’s not hungry, he’s not crying, he’s just numb.
there’s always been something wrong with him then.
he starts avoiding his family, thinking maybe time away from them might be able to fix whatever is wrong with him. maybe if he takes his mind off of everything that he should be doing and just focus on things he wants to do for a little bit, the urge to be in the center of attention will grow on him. maybe if he doesn’t let anyone give him attention, he’ll be fixed.
he tells his dad not to set a place for him at the table anymore, not to look for him and just to leave him alone for a bit. he sneaks out when the house is silent to go to the washroom, to eat a bit of food, to shower.
he wants to be fixed, he hopes this can fix him.
a cupcake appears outside of his door once a day, varying in flavors and he knows it’s his sister. they had had a rocky relationship from the start, when he had realized he would much rather be a shadow than a star and she had never understood why he didn’t want to shine.
she was a a star that shone brighter than anything and he was nothing, something to be stowed away and forgotten and apparently that didn’t sit right with her.
he smiles, and eats the cupcakes, returning the favor in the form of polaroids of the cupcakes, of the sky, of the flowers outside his window.
being subtle in not in his forte, and he messes up one day, waiting too long to go to take a shower and he runs into dalena on his way back to his room.
what’s wrong, why haven’t you been eating with us? she asks him immediately and he doesn’t know how to answer, his mouth falling open for a moment as he gapes, trying to find the right words to describe how he’s trying to fix himself, how he’s trying to fit in with her and pietro and how it’s just so hard and how he’s so tired and he wishes he hadn’t been born this way but he can’t change how he thinks or how he feels or how he’s scared to be in the spotlight and it all tumbles out the wrong way in answer to her question.
me. is what he says finally, his gaze on his little toes and he doesn’t want to look at her, doesn’t want to hear her tell him that he’s right and that’s he shouldn’t be part of their family and that everything about him is just wrong wrong wrong.
she overreacts, in true dalena maximoff fashion, and she tells him there’s nothing wrong with him, that’s he’s her absolutely perfect little brother and who in the world is telling him these things before it clicks in her mind and the silence between them grows.
he tells her he’s not like her, that’s no matter how hard he tries he can’t be like her, like their father and he keeps his eyes on the ground, wanting to apologize, wanting to give his life back to their mother, wishing someone else had been born in his place, someone who fit in, someone who could be part of the maximoffs before she stutters out a soft apology.
you don’t have to be like me, is what dalena says, seeming like she was fighting back tears and he had never realized she had never meant that there was something actually wrong with him, that it wasn’t meant to feel like a broken heart. i was wrong, sebby. please don’t think that there’s anything wrong with you, you’re perfect the way you are.
it takes a while to sink in, and when it does the tears don’t stop falling. they slide down his cheeks and down his neck just to soak into his shirt and he feels something in his chest, something wanting to burst out and he realizes. he feels like he’s been set free.
thank you, he whispers into the empty air, his sister having stepped away from him after a few moments of him not speaking.
he comes down to eat breakfast with his family the next morning, a small smile on his lips as his dd greets him like there’s nothing wrong, like his son hadn’t been avoiding his entire family for two weeks. his dad asks if he wants any toast and he nods, being handed a slice with butter on it, just how he likes it.
he glances at his sister, hoping she’ll say something, anything so he can tell her thank you, so that he can tell her that her words had meant a lot to him and that he would be forever grateful for her help in his misery.
like he said, she was a star that shone too brightly for him, a star that would always be there to guide him.
he knows now that there’s nothing wrong with him. he’s just how he is. just sebastian maximoff.
and he realizes he doesn’t mind being just sebastian maximoff. because that was who he was born to be.
