CHAPTER 7
Pulling the white suit jacket tighter around herself with the hand not holding his own gloved one, they exited the dilapidated office building that she’d been held in.
She glanced up at the boarded windows and graffiti coated walls until a finger under her chin forced her attention elsewhere… elsewhere to… him…
He ran his hand along her jaw and then up through her hair.
Her eyes closed as she tried and failed to hold back a blissful sigh.
Bringing her face to his, he pressed the faintest shadow of a kiss to her lips, the cold tip of his nose grazing her cheeks... or maybe it was the wind hitting the trace of a tear.
No words were exchanged as they continued their walk, hand in hand, in the moonlight.
Something was playing on her mind, however. Even more, somehow, than the get-up that her neighbour was sporting.
“How did you know where to find me?”
“Marc did.”
“Marc?”
“He answered the phone I think.”
“So, that man… he told Marc where I was?”
“Yeah… bit weird.” Steven’s eyebrows furrowed.
“Very weird.” She agreed, biting her lip.
Their walk continued in silence, both preoccupied with thoughts and theories that wouldn't stick.
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Getting up to their floor, they naturally reached Steven’s door first.
She took his suit jacket off and handed it back to him. He put it on and then the whole suit just… disappeared.
She tentatively placed a hand on his chest, now covered in what she assumed to be what he was wearing before.
“How-“
“I would explain but… look at you, you’re practically snoozing on the spot.” He said with a light laugh.
“Am not.” She protested with a slow blink, her head tipping forward.
“Let’s get you in to bed, missy.” He started to guide her down the corridor from behind but she dug in her heels.
“Yours.” She mumbled tiredly.
Y/N didn’t admit it aloud but the past couple of nights sleeping in his bed had been better sleep than she’d had in months… even if the circumstances getting her there were less than ideal.
She also wasn’t ready to be on her own and she might not have many more opportunities to be around him once they were forced to part ways.
Meanwhile, Steven was breathing a sigh of relief.
He wasn’t just going to make the assumption she’d sleep in his flat where she’d be protected but that was what he’d wanted.
“You sure?” He rubbed his hands up and down her arms.
She hummed before waking up a little bit and realising something.
“Wait… no, I didn’t think this through,” she started and he froze, “you need to sleep. I can’t keep taking your bed.”
He ducked his head so his forehead rested on her shoulder. His curls cascaded forward.
“Y/N-“
“No, Steven. I’m not stealing your sleep again.”
He lifted his head up to peer at the side of her face.
“If you- if you were comfortable… we could share it?”
“How- I mean… what about Marc?”
“There’s plenty of room on that big silly bed and we can even, I dunno, put some pillows there or something if he wants.”
“As long as you’re both OK with it. I don’t want you or him to be stressed about it.”
“Go get your pyjamas, love.” He nudged her down the hall.
She groaned, too tired to do the tiny walk from where she was to her door.
He laughed as she zombie-walked away.
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She glanced around her flat, smiling at how good of a job he’d done at tidying it.
Naturally, a few things were in the wrong places and a few bits were… broken and in the bin.
She didn’t dwell on it, though, walking to her wardrobe and getting changed into some comfy shorts and fluffy socks.
Y/N went to slip on a shirt but paused to look at the necklace. The pendant was of a lioness with a solar disk and some kind of snake…
Analysing it from all angles, she tried to figure out how it ‘worked’.
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While she was getting changed, Steven went to set up the bed, hoping not to have to converse with-
“Steven?”
Shit.
He looked to the three-way mirror, Marc glaring at him from the reflective expanse.
“Steven.” Marc warned lowly.
“Don’t.” Steven frowned.
“Look-“ He began but Steven interrupted.
“No, you look mister I-know-everything-so-listen-to-me… that woman needs our help.”
“But your feelings-“ Marc replied exasperatedly, a weary hand brushing his curls from his forehead.
“My feelings aren’t important,” Steven laughed bitterly, pulling at his jacket sleeve, “no, they aren’t… but she is.” He gestured vaguely in the direction that her flat would be.
“She’s safe. We agreed when she’s safe, we’d part ways.” Marc asserted.
“Safe? She just got bloody kidnapped!” Steven yelled,
“Ella es peligrosa.” Jake grumbled like a forgotten whisper deep in his mind.
“She- what? What are you on about? No, she isn’t. You’re winding me up.”
“I think she might be, Steven.” Marc replied slowly.
Steven motioned for his alter to continue. He did.
“She worried that she was my target when she thought I might have been undercover, she was actually pretty threatening with an easel," he chuckled in spite of himself before clearing his throat and continuing, "you said she told you that the people after her was her fault. And…” He cut himself off.
“And… what?” Steven asked warily, trying to take in all these observations that Marc had picked up on.
“The necklace or whatever they stole…”
“What about it?”
“She was wearing it after ‘Mr Knight’ saved her.”
Steven’s brows furrowed and he speed-walked from his flat to hers. Marc shook his head.
He knocked on her door.
“Give me a second!” She shouted from the other side.
After a few moments, he heard the latch click, momentarily appreciating Marc’s repair-work.
Her freshly washed, dewy face met his gaze.
“You OK? I was just changi-“
“Did you get the necklace back?” Steven asked in a speedy jumble of words.
She paused for a second too long. He spotted her eyes dart down to her own chest and back.
“He gave it back to me.” She replied, her voice not more than a whisper.
He tilted his head in the direction to his flat and she followed along with her tail between her legs, like a guilty puppy.
It made his heart clench. She just hadn’t had time to tell him, he rationalised.
He let her enter before him and locked the door behind him.
“Steven,” she started, her neighbour still facing the wood of his door, “I was going to tell you but-“
“But?” An American voice interrupted harshly.
“But… it’s been a pretty fucking crazy evening. Steven’s some sort of superhero which I assume makes you one too. I was kidnapped by this stranger who has motives I cannot make head or tails of and I am so bloody exhausted. I just wanted one evening where we could both get the rest we deserve before facing the world as soon as the sun decides that life has to get going yet again.” She ranted, running an angry hand through her hair and nudging the sand on the floor with her socks.
Marc turned round and his deep brown eyes seemed shallow and empty.
He chewed the inside on his cheek and put his hands on his hips.
“Show me the necklace.” He extended a hand and made a grabbing motion with the twitch of his fingers.
She hastily slid it out from where it hung underneath her shirt, unwilling to part with it fully. The painter walked up to him, placing the pendant in his hand.
She was stood close enough to him that him holding it didn’t hurt from the chain pulling at her neck but not too close that it was lax.
His quick and short breaths heated her cheeks as he looked at it.
It seemed so much smaller and so much more delicate in his large hands.
“That’s Sekhmet.” Steven informed Marc from the depths of his mind, with barely retained admiration for the piece.
“Sekhmet.” Marc repeated for the benefit of his neighbour.
“Goddess of War?” Y/N questioned almost to herself.
Steven nodded in the mirror like a proud tutor.
Marc rolled his eyes.
“What did the man say about it?” Marc adjusted his grip on it and she shifted closer to him as it pulled around her neck and caused her to wince.
Her chest was now almost flesh against his.
“He asked if my mum ever told me how it worked… I don’t know what he meant.”
Marc hummed.
“Turn the solar disk.” Steven suggested.
Marc looked at the reflection and nodded. The alter in said reflection had wide anticipatory eyes.
Tentatively, he began to turn the golden halo.