It’s two minutes and two hours and two days since he’d heard the sirens.
He’s not sure.
He stares at the back of his wife’s shirt, the blue flowers darkened from the rain, clinging to her skin as she weeps. They’re pained sounds, suspended in agony, filling every empty crevice in the hospital's hallway with a mother’s cry. He blinks, tries to reach out to her, to at least hold her body as it sways unsteadily from the news.
A doctor is talking, something about the complications surrounding ‘secondary drowning’, though he can’t bring himself to listen. He tries. Really tries, desperately trudging through the noise to just…process.
Sirens were not unheard of when living so close to the city. It was a hard adjustment for him at first, when they’d first moved. He’s constantly peek through the windows, squinting through the blinds at every passing emergency eerily echoing down the streets, trying to grasp onto the weight of such a reminder. A reminder that personal cataclysms knew no names or faces or religion. They could strike with no warning, at any minute, with nothing but the initial sound of a siren signifying the calamity before life permanently changed.
The sirens he’d heard two minutes and two hours and two days ago were different. He’d been briskly packing up his tools, securing a tarp over the leftover wood, briefly checking his watch once the first round began to pierce through the stormy air.
Somehow, he knew.
They were no longer announcing a stranger's introduction to grief. The shrillness did not fade with distance, instead remained near the house, uncomfortably close. This time, it was not someone else’s momentous tragedy he was witnessing through the blinds.
He catches her just before she collapses into a chair, shivering at the way their soaking clothes did not soften this sorrow.
It’s two seconds and two months and two lifetimes since the sirens led him to his own personal cataclysm. The sight of his little boy's bodies being dragged out of the mouth of a cave.
— — —
Faint beams of moonlight paint the posters on his wall, delicately bleeding in through the curtain pushed askew and illuminating a pale blue lightsaber.
Marc slowly blinks at it, letting his sad mind wander. His drowsy eyes take in the sliver of night sky through his window, hoping to be swept up in the distraction from the incessant cough festering in his chest.
His father had told him about light pollution. Marc had told Roro about it. Ever since then he’s tried to imagine what it’d be like to live outside of the city, where half the night sky wasn’t erased from the glow of the buildings. Tonight, the fragmented piece he got through the curtain appeared to be oddly clear and Marc could only stare.
He imagined the achy chill that kissed his bones now was from the pummeled surface, which could easily reach to 280 degrees below fahrenheit. Around 240,000 miles away and its steady light still reaches into his room, still touches his bed and his toys and his posters. Looking up into the sky wasn’t looking up at all, he remembers telling Roro, because there was no direction in space. Pointing up at a star could mean picking one out from a bottomless chasm below, as they hung off the Earth with nothing but gravity’s embrace holding them close. Roro then asked if gravity was like The Force, and Marc was quick to explain it like always. Mom would’ve called it teasing, but Marc loved teaching Roro things. He loved clear nights because it meant getting to explain the stars, to make up stories for each one and listen to his little brother guess at how old they were before they named them, all after they’d begged to stay out in the backyard just a little longer.
Marc’s chest seizes, sending him into another fit of coughs that becomes half muffled in the mattress. Tears spring to his eyes as he weakly grips his blankets, gaze finally dropping to a box on the floor by his bookcase.
He could barely see it but he knew it was there. A brand new telescope, unopened, untouched, collecting dust. Waiting to be used at the right moment, which would’ve been tonight’s full moon, just him and Roro setting it up….
Something is pressing on him, pushing on his lungs, blocking his throat. The blankets become taut against his flushed skin, too tight, too heavy, and not as soft as he remembers them being.
Wrinkles. Creases. Tags. Seams. More wrinkles.
The pillow case, now impossibly damp from his feverish sweat and tears, practically scrapes against his cheek, no longer holding the sweet smell of fabric softener.
His breath hitches. And he chokes.
The stars and the moonlight, his constant companions, they’re completely forgotten. The wonder and escape completely extinguished. The comfort completely lost.
His pant leg gets twisted, his sleeve rides up too high.
Marc sluggishly fights with his blankets now tangled around his limbs, gulping and gasping for what feels like the thousandth time. He miserably raises his head towards his alarm clock, feeling a stuttering cry build up at the reminder.
Three hours. Three hours since he reluctantly gathered his bedding from the couch downstairs and brought it up to his room. Three hours since his dad told him goodnight with a pause at the end, the same one attached to the end of all his goodnights now, like he knew Marc no longer knew how to have one. Like he knew the whole house had forgotten how.
Three hours of tirelessly sucking in broken breaths, mind numbingly scared of the struggle that only seemed to worsen the longer it went on.
Pulling in air his lungs seemingly no longer liked the taste of.
Letting it go in painful bursts that left his throat feeling as though he’d swallowed crushed glass.
He gives up on the blankets with a sob, tensely crossing his arms over his chest as more wet coughs rack his body, curling in on himself. He tries to call out but only garbled nothingness comes out.
He’d felt this all before. Not even a week ago. Surrounded by cold, slick, unwavering walls of stone. Ears ringing with their screams, rushing water sweeping them off their feet, chest and insides simply on fire–
Rough threads of a rug sear his skin, digging into his knees from his doubled over form, the edge of the stairs finally coming into focus.
“–arc? Marc, look at me, son.”
Warm hands, careful and warm hands find his back.
Marc’s vision blurs violently.
“Marc, you’re going to hurt yourself, please–”
His head erupts in dizzying bursts of pain, somewhere in the back, a little bit in the front, he can barely open his eyes. He wants to move his arms, to reach out for the warm hands but they remain close instead, locked protectively against his chest.
Someone’s shushing him. It’s a steady sound, one that eventually begins to drown out all of the extra noises and textures, making it easier to sink into it. A few more moments, maybe, and finally he forces himself to sit up. His dad is on the floor, crouched down in front of him, tired eyes searching for something.
He doesn’t hear his father’s questions over the sounds of his own cries, spilling from his sore chest without his permission. Something, everything–everything–he doesn’t remember–
Warm hands, his father’s hands, are gently grabbing his shaking shoulders. An urging voice, his father’s voice, now louder than before.
“What’s wrong, Marc? Where does it hurt?”
Marc jolts back when his father’s hand covers his own.
“Is it your chest?”
His back hits the wall and the world erupts further. All he wanted to do was escape, but he couldn’t begin to think of what from. His bed was no longer soft. His brother's room was no longer his favorite place. His coughing wouldn’t stop and the floor and the rug and the sudden flash of lights made his bones ache.
“Turn them off! He needs the dark for a few minutes–”
“Why is he on the floor? Cariño, what’s–”
Marc starts choking on another sob, trying to pick himself up, instead dropping his throbbing head in a big, warm lap. He feels fingers softly start to run through his hair as he sucks in another wet breath, squeezing his eyes shut to block all the noise. It feels nice, for a moment. Grounding.
“What’s wrong with him? Marc?”
Marc feels his father shift under him, leaning down so he doesn’t have to shout.
“Marc, tell me where it hurts.”
An icy shiver runs down his sore spine just as the hallway lights shut off and everything’s black, suffocating and itchy and black. Marc blinks at the door at the end of the hall. He tries to bring his arms into some semblance of a hug around his father’s legs, hiding his face when the stillness becomes too much.
The door hadn’t opened in days, probably wouldn’t anymore.
“It’s okay, son. Just say where. Please.”
Marc didn’t know what body part to point at..
— — —
The front desk doesn’t seem bothered with giving him another key, just eyes the two of them with a strange look before handing it over.
Layla mumbles a thank you as Marc searches for the elevator. It was all vaguely familiar to him; the burgundy carpet, the slightly buzzing yellow lights above, though, given that he had just booked the room only a few days ago….
At least he…he thinks it was a few days ago–
He feels Layla softly brush his arm, stopping to give him a look as he blankly stares into the open, vacant elevator. The Duat had scrambled any sense of time there was to be had, like the scored surface of a handle, being worn down from persistent contact, leaving a clean slate of sorts where there should be evidence. He used to be so good at this, at keeping track of time. It bordered on religion, especially when it meant the difference between Steven being safe and Steven finally finding the cracks in his life.
The elevator doors shut with a soft click, one that brings him back to the present. They’re both sagging against the walls, letting out a breath that was being held outside of either of their knowledge.
He catches Layla peering at him. There’s something under it. Something in him tells him not to look any closer.
She lets out a sigh.
“Hey, umm…” She rubs her eyes with both hands before messily brushing her hair back. “How many days do you have here?”
Marc blanks again. “Uh…”
Layla takes him in for a minute. “It’s not too big of a deal, I was just thinking…It’d be best if I stick around.”
He stares at the dingy carpet, refraining from rubbing his own eyes as more sting slips into his chest.
“Stuck around to…”
“Clean up. Help out, you know…”
“Right. Right, yeah…”
“Yeah…”
The elevator shakes a little, reminding Marc of Steven’s apartment.
If Marc wasn’t so mind-numbingly tired, he’d think he saw a glimpse of a smile. Maybe a smirk. Something light and so perfect looking on Layla’s features that it makes him blank. Again.
“It’s not their fault,” she says, like an afterthought, tilting her head back while keeping her eyes on him. He crosses his arms and mirrors her as they both patiently wait to reach their floor, the buzzing bulb above them basking the elevator in harsh orange shadows. “It’s not like they could’ve prepared for the damages and the mess from…a fight like that.”
Shit. He never even thought about that. All of Khonshu’s missions resulted in messes of other kinds, ones he never had to worry about cleaning up before.
He scoffs. “Yeah, I never understood why people stuck around in New York.”
Layla hums, nodding at nothing in particular.
“I mean, who even cleans that shit up? Pretty sure the Avengers weren’t goin’ around rebuilding houses and roads.”
“Not sure, I’ve never been a superhero before.”
It could almost be like before, years of checking into motels after long days of missions together, both with a single bag of clothes and toiletries slung on their backs. They’d fixed an unspoken routine at some point in their travels, where Marc would suggest where to stop for the night and Layla would pick the motels and hotels and hostels. They were both light travelers and it was something Marc missed. The simplicity of it all, no second-guessing, no planting roots anywhere since the concepts that surrounded a home oftentimes felt like they resided in Layla. She’d wear his hat and he’d use her shampoo and that was enough for them.
It was different now, though.
He wonders if she thinks about the nights they spent sleeping in the back of their rentals when motels weren’t an option as often and in the same light as he did.
As soon as they find the room and unlock the door, Layla pauses abruptly in the doorway.
Marc nearly groans.
“Holy shit.”
The room was, regrettably, exactly how he’d left it.
Marc had stubbornly ignored as much as he could the morning after. Pale and early morning sunlight had poured through the curtains, through the bloodstains he’d made an effort not to look at, too spiteful, maybe. He’d pulled on his boots and heard the crunch of the mirror under his soles, embedding the remnants of his breakdown into the worn down carpet.
This was pathetic. He was pathetic, right?
Marc swallows, tiredly making his way to the bed, feeling a twist in his gut at the poor attempt at hiding the empty bottle on the nightstand.
Layla’s watching him.
For a long moment, skin tingling and nerves curling and breaking apart from simply burning away, it’s quiet.
Marc knows he’s a coward for avoiding her gaze, knows his chance for convincing her it looked worse than it was had long since passed, knows this is it, where he truly can’t hide anymore, even as the multiple decade learned instinct claws at him, sinks into him, begs him.
Dignity gone, Marc could beg her. To stop looking, to turn away before it’s too late, to delude himself. But it already was.
And she….
She grabs the small plastic ice bucket. She lowers herself down to the carpet. And she starts gathering the pieces of shattered mirror with delicate fingers.
Marc stares, unmoving, unkept sense of self slowly rearranging itself with every shard of glass dropped in the bucket.
Layla’s hand covers his, relieving the slick weight of the bottle from his grip. He nods at something she says, or asks, tells her something in return, or leaves it in the air between them as she disappears into the bathroom.
It’s then that he sinks to the bed, letting the white noise of the shower wash over him as he waits, trying to picture what it’ll feel like, to have another weight freed from him, only from his chest and not his fingers. What will he do with the extra space it’s taken up? How will he replace the part of him that goes missing once he gives it breath and syllables and shape and a place to land?
There’s panic as she steps out of the bathroom, seeping into him like the water from her curls soaked into his t-shirt.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, besides the obvious, grateful it comes out stronger than he felt.
Her cheeks are red and blotchy as she examines the pillow between them. “It’s just a lot.”
Marc smells his shampoo as she tilts her head thoughtfully. “Is it always so…painful? When you’re an avatar, when they…”
“Think so,” he mumbles, distantly wondering when she’ll go numb to it like he did, or if that wasn’t supposed to happen. “You get used to it.”
Her cheeks remain splotchy as she peers down at the sheets. “There were so many people there. There was this girl…I almost didn’t make it in time. Marc, I don’t know how you…”
Marc fills in the blanks, nodding slow, then shrugging.
“In the Marines, I put it away. Got good at it, then got great at it. But with Khonshu and the suit, I–”
His breath hitches and suddenly it’s back in his chest, bearing malice and painful as sin.
His hand returns to his sternum as he lets that night sprinkle in, memories of her patient fingers softly trailing down his mummified legs, with gentle intrigue in her eyes. On bloodier nights, his own fingers ghost over the same spot on his thigh she’d paused at then, a hieroglyph she’d tenderly touched as he shook with stifled sobs.
“The protecting soldier of the moon,” she’d insisted, cupping his cheek with her other hand, warm chocolate brown eyes guiding him off the ledge.
She frowns at his trembling hand now, digging into his chest, causing her to try and hold it.
“Marc?”
Tell me where it hurts.
“That night, you-you told me I couldn’t save everyone.”
This is just another ledge, he thinks, bracing himself with a stuttering breath as he feels the edge. “And I can’t.”
It’s a shame with a different face, the fact that he could’ve died with this weight in him and not questioned its place in his bones. It made a home there, after all, somewhere under some three decades of scar tissue.
“Roro was the first.”
The questions she didn’t know she’d been asking ever since Harrow had held him down and taunted him for all he’s worth is suddenly answered, perhaps the quickest answer she ever got from him.
She sits up, hand not leaving his, instead trying to ease it away from himself as he begins to finally fathom release.
There were lifetimes of things he wanted to rid himself of. Lifetimes worth of penance engraved in a path that had his name all over it. Things that followed, biting at his heels, and hung, brushing too close to his head.
He thinks back to his…organizing principal. The faces of his victims were as clear as the day he’d taken their lives, all of them getting a seat, not one finally getting to disappear into a corner of shadows. He thinks of the tents, burning away next to the bodies, the corpses, all placed exactly as they’d fallen that night. And the cobblestone.
The color of it, the shade of gray matching the sky as he’d pulled his tiny hand, their sneakers nearly tripping on them in their haste to make it before the storm hit. The unevenness that’d kept his eyes busy as the neighbors stared, three days after leaving the hospital. The feel of it, digging into the knees of his dress pants as he wept, blurring in a drunken haze, dirtying up his Kippah just as an unspoken part of him hoped it would.
All these details reminded Marc of why his life was paved with repentance. Meant for safekeeping in the way that loud meant mistake, and silence meant avoidance, and quiet meant forever broken. In the way that graves mean lost.
And Layla, intertwined into photos and bingo and staring at him like a stranger, fingers softly intertwined with his on top of the sheets, meant the flowers on top.
Loved.