Chapter 1
Marc Spector hated his birthday. He had since he was 10. When he was 9 he had lost his little brother in a terrible accident. They had been playing in a cave, imitating their favorite adventure movie, and a storm that had quickly arrived flooded the cave. Marc made sure to follow his mother’s orders. Look after your little brother but somehow in the chaos, and the darkened chambers, he had lost him. Marc didn’t know how he got out of the cave but he did know he came out alone and completely devastated. Randall was gone because Marc had insisted on playing in the damn cave. He had pushed Randall to do it and now he didn’t have a brother.
He was there when the Police told his parents the news and he could still remember the wail his mother let out. His father didn’t have anything to say to him either. That day changed them forever. Immediately his mother turned cold to him. After all it was his fault her baby boy was dead. When they had the Shiva for Randall Marc didn’t know what to do. He was alone. His mother refused to even acknowledge him and his father was distant. All he knew was that he had to get dressed up. He vaguely remembered his grandmother’s funeral and his father helping him with that. He had told Marc at the time what to expect to help him through the grieving process.
This was different though. When he had gone downstairs to check in, he wanted to pay his own respects to the photo of his brother, his mother went off on him. Marc was supposed to have kept him safe but he didn’t. It was his fault. Their broken family was now his fault.
On his 10th birthday his mother just locked herself away which didn’t surprise Marc but it hurt him deeply. The quietness from her, the snide remarks, the guilt just flowed off of her and put bad thoughts inside of his head. He knew he was at fault. It was a complete accident. He had tried his best to save Randall and he failed.
On his 12th birthday though everything changed for the worst. His mother ruined it by her snide comments again. How it should have been him who died, how he had been jealous of Randall, that she always expected Marc to do something like this. It had gotten under his skin,yet again, but this time he knew he could step away. If he got away from her he could calm down. What he wasn’t expecting though was after his anger fit his mother came up and started to beat on his door. When she finally broke in she grabbed the belt that hung off of his dresser and walked towards him. She was going to teach him a lesson. That was the day Steven Grant was created. Steven pushed back all the bad memories of her. Of the days she beat him with a belt, verbal abuse and everything else. While Steven was created to see the good that came out of the broken woman, Marc remembered it all.
He left the day he turned 18. It had not been a home to him since he was 12. Although his father didn’t want him to go, he had told Marc he didn’t want to lose another son, Marc had no choice. He had to get out of the abusive household which led him to join the Military. It was years later when he had received the dishonorable discharge. He didn’t remember exactly what had happened that day, all he knew was that he had been found in a fugue state, and that action led to his past being brought up. The military didn’t know the full extent of Marc’s illness, Marc had been damn good at hiding Steven, but they did know something was wrong.
After a very long psychiatric evaluation the military knew they had no choice. They had to discharge him.
After that he was lost. Nobody would hire a deadbeat with a bad military record. It was working under the table for a while until his former CO Bushman found him and approached him. Bushman wanted a work for hire man. It brought in money Marc desperately needed but being a mercenary brought in more problems. With his last run with Bushman, There was an Egyptian tomb he had wanted raided.
Authentic Egyptian artifacts were worth loads of money on the black market. There was one problem with that though. Nobody expected a group of archaeologists to be on that dig site. That immediately changed everything. Bushman ordered everybody executed. There was absolutely no way Marc could allow that.
He had to get them out of there but after a battle with Bushman and the other men he failed. Miserably. Marc was forced to watch as each of the archeologists was shot in the back of the head. They were executed for being at the right place at the wrong time. Bushman got the artifacts he wanted and now that he had left his former right hand man for dead, he knew there was no way Marc could have survived that wound in the middle of the desert, he was able to get away. Not knowing what else to do Marc started to drag himself through the desert sand. There was no way he could die in the middle of the desert with the people he failed to protect. He found himself crawling into a temple that was nearby.
It didn’t take him long to get situated at the stairs that were leading up to a statue he never noticed. Then again he didn’t really care. He found himself using his left hand to check the wound on the right side under his vest. It was covered in blood. He knew he had to make a choice. Either bleed out slowly and painfully or end it quickly.
Quickly was the best option. After all, he was a bad person. He let people he cared about die, he failed people.
Marc pulled out the pistol he kept on his right side in a thigh holster. Putting a bullet under his chin was the best option he had. There was a variable Marc didn’t expect though. A voice. It wasn’t a voice he was used to hearing. Maybe he was officially losing it. The deep voice explained who he was. He was the Egyptian god Khonshu and was looking for a loyal warrior. At first Marc rejected him, death sounded better, but using manipulation tactics Khonshu got him to agree. Marc was now the Fist of Vengeance, he was the warrior Khonshu needed. He was the Moon Knight.