“It’s okay. We’re okay”
The Eternals had won. Thena had killed the deviant calling itself Kro. Sersi had transformed the celestial to stone, stopping the Emergence. Ikaris had flown into the sun rather than face his family, having betrayed them for the sake of the mission. Sprite had become human. And Makkari had him back. Her Druig. Her beautiful, beautiful Druig.
The Domo was a mess. It would take Phastos some time to repair it enough that it could get them off the beach. Ikaris had done a lot of damage with his energy beams, and the subsequent crash into the rocks had caused Makkari’s treasures to go flying. Priceless artefacts from the whole of human history, once carefully placed in their organized heaps, now lay strewn about the floor like they were garbage. Irreplaceable antiques lost to time, broken. Makkari couldn’t help but wince at the sight as they boarded the ship.
Phastos took stock of the damage to the ship itself, cosmic energy swirling around him as he formulated a plan to get the Domo airborne again. Sprite went to their room, wanting time alone to mourn Ikaris. Thena was helping Sersi bandage her abdomen where Sprite had stabbed her, insisting that as the goddess of war, she had more tolerance for her own wounds, and they could wait while she helped the less combatant Eternal. Makkari gripped hard at Druig’s hand and gazed at the mess.
Druig felt her tightened grasp as she saw her hoard, his fingers interlaced with hers from the moment they pulled their foreheads apart on the beach. Neither of them had any desire to lose contact with the other, needing reassurance that they were both alive and present. They had come so close to losing each other. He felt Makkari’s sadness in his head as she looked at her collection, then the guilt as she realized she could have lost so much more. Druig smiled empathetically and closed his eyes as he pressed his lips to her dark braided hair and squeezed back on her hand.
“It’s okay to be upset about your treasures, Love,” he said with both his voice and his free hand. She reached out and touched a piece of a shattered statue of Bast she’d acquired outside of Wakanda. A tear rolled down her face.
Druig signed, “Come on,” and he led her to what had once been his room on the Domo, before they’d left the ship behind them in Babylon.
His room stood in contrast to the rest of the ship. It was simple, but functional. The bed had dark colored blankets and pillows. There stood a wardrobe where he had stored his tunics and robes, an unadorned table and sitting chair, and a cabinet where he stored the few treasures he owned: a set of singing bowls from Tibet, paints from Egypt, and a small Roman statuette of Mercury. This room was where for the first 4500 years on Earth, he had sought solitude when the weight of his power grew too heavy. He could feel the humans’ every thought and emotion without even trying. Their minds were so primitive and without any shield. It was different with his fellow Eternals and with the Deviants. He could sense their presence and the general gist of strongly broadcast surface thoughts and emotions but could see nothing deeper and could not grab control. Being more closed to him, their minds were easier to tune out when he needed to. Until they abandoned the Domo in Babylon, he’d relied on the simplicity of this room to calm his mind, knowing that no human would interrupt by entering his proximity. Now, its simplicity and lack of clutter made it the room with the least damage after the crash.
Druig reached for a pillow that had landed on the floor, and the pain in his ribs and back that he’d been ignoring flared to life. “Aaaagh” he cried out.
Makkari felt the vibration of his voice and it jarred her back to the present. She watched as he grabbed at his ribs. Of course, he was in pain. Ikaris had shot him into a mountain. It should never have taken her so long to assess the damage to him when she’d been distracted by her silly things. Furious with herself, she signed, “Druig, sit. You’re wounded, and I need to see.”
“I’m fine, Love. Just some bruises,” he replied with an unconvincing smile.
“You are not fine. You nearly died,” she signed sternly, shaking her head vigorously as her hands snapped the words.
“I don’t want to make a fuss. Besides, from what Phastos was saying, it sounds like I had quite the avenging angel out there, didn’t I? Bet the bastard was in far worse shape than me by the time he decided to go all dramatic.”
“Druig, I’m serious.”
“So am I. It’s hard to be more dramatic than flying into the sun. Kingo will love that bit for his movie.”
Makkari huffed. She was done waiting for him to obey. She used her speed to generate just enough momentum as she pushed him onto the bed. He gasped out in another burst of pain. He was too distracted to notice her own face go rigid with the effort as her own wounds violently throbbed.
“If you wanted me in bed, you just had to say something,” he gave her a flirtatious smirk, but she could feel the shaky vibration of his voice and see a hesitancy in his signing as he fought to regain his breath.
“Druig. Please. I need to know how bad it is. We don’t have Ajak to heal us and we have to rely on human methods. That means bandages, antibiotics, and time.”
Druig sighed. He was afraid to look himself. He could tell it wasn’t going to be pretty. But he also knew there was no arguing with her. “Okay.”
“Armor off,” she commanded.
Druig raised an eyebrow, and Makkari blushed, but he did as she asked. Or at least, as much as his injured body could manage before the strain of using his bruised muscles hurt too much. Ordinarily, they donned and shed their armor by allowing the Domo to generate or deconstruct it around their bodies, but it could be removed manually by concealed fastenings at the shoulders and sides, requiring Druig to stretch his sore ribs. After a few failed attempts to reach for the places where his armor connected, he confessed, “I may need help.”
She reached for the fastenings he couldn’t manage, and gingerly removed the armor and his now tattered and stained black t-shirt from his torso. She gasped loudly.
Being a product of higher technology than humans had access to, their armor was able to auto-regenerate once breeched, a feature which allowed it to continue to protect them to its maximum ability. Druig’s intact armor had concealed the true damage Ikaris had done.
Two angry welts, blossoming with blistered skin, oozing slightly with blood, graced his chest, just above his heart. Purple bruising on his ribcage suggested that he’d fractured a few. The rest of his body was a rainbow of bruises, including a handprint on his neck where Ikaris had grabbed him. His shoulder blade sported a similar set of burn marks where he’d been blasted out of the Uni-mind. Makkari held her breath.
She didn’t sign a word as she rushed out of the room in a red and gold blur, returning seconds later with supplies from the med-bay. Druig watched her carefully as she stumbled out of her super-speed, swaying slightly as she regained balance. She never stumbled. Never lost balance. Something was wrong. He reached out to brace her.
“I’m fine,” she signed.
“Liar.”
“Look who’s talking. ‘Just some bruises’ my ass.”
“There are bruises, are there not?”
“I’ll be fine,” she insisted, hands snapping the gestures, “I’m taking care of you.”
“Hypocrite.”
She ignored him and started laying things on the table: bottle of water, bandages, antibiotic cream, some bruise balm, a soft clean cloth. She reached for the water and the cloth and moved to begin cleaning the energy burn on his chest. Druig reached for her hand to stop her. She looked at him crossly.
“I will let you, if you let me,” he signed.
She looked into his blue eyes and saw his concern for her and sighed. “Deal,” she agreed.
He very seriously tilted his chin upwards at her, and she mimicked him before they both broke into broad grins and chuckled to themselves. She’d almost lost this. She refused to ever let it come so close again. She began to clean his wounds, eyes narrowed in determination, dabbing the cloth as gently as she could.
It hurt. Druig didn’t want to distress her more than she already was, so he bit down on his lip and fought against his need to gasp or flinch in pain. He hadn’t felt pain like this in—well ever—but it hadn’t even come close in the past 500 years. As an Eternal, even a thinker rather than a fighter, his durability, speed, and strength were far greater than any human. His compound had been peaceful; he’d made sure of that. Accidents happened of course, but he was hard to injure. Only Deviants had ever caused real damage to him, and there’d always been Ajak for that. And nothing in 7000 years had ever hurt so much as the golden bastard’s energy beams. He knew they’d likely leave scars. The rest would heal, and would take less time than a human’s would, and all evidence of crashing into the mountain would fade. But Ikaris’s betrayal was written into his flesh for eternity. He hated what that might do to Makkari.
Satisfied that his wounds were now clean and would not become infected, Makkari began to apply an antibiotic cream to them. She kept seeing it in her head. Their joint ascension as her cosmic energy flowed through him to join the Uni-mind before he was blasted back to the ground, breaking the connection. She had watched in horror as her brother grabbed her Druig back into the air by his throat. The one place her speed couldn’t bring her. She had begged in her mind for Druig to be spared. Please no. Please please no. And then Ikaris had blasted him again, letting the energy of his eye beams carry him downward into the side of the mountain. She wasn’t fast enough. He was gone. She screamed. Ikaris destroyed the Domo, letting it nearly crash into Sersi. She was fast enough to save Sersi, Thena, and Phastos, but not her Druig. Ikaris confirmed his death, and she had seen red. Never had she felt such pain and rage.
Makkari’s hands shook as she reached for a gauze pad to bandage in place over his heart. A tear rolled down her cheek. Druig cupped her face with his hands and pulled her head down to press her forehead against his. “My beautiful Makkari, I’m here. I’m alive. Come back to me, Love,” he murmurs, knowing she could feel the vibration of his voice. Knowing it grounded her.
Makkari blinked and came back to the present. Druig was here. She had him. Ikaris had failed. He was hurt, but she was taking care of him. She had a task to do. She wasn’t helpless. She pushed the haunting images aside and felt for the vibration of his breath and his pulse. She felt him wipe away her tear with his thumb, and she leaned her face into his hand. He smelt of the forest, the rain, and the soil of his village where he’d spent the past 500 years. She breathed him in deeply before turning her face slightly to gently kiss the base of his thumb before pulling away to finish his dressing.
The bruise balm was something he’d brought with him from the Amazon. The Eternals had never suffered bruises for long with Ajak around, so it had never been worth it to have anything on hand on the Domo. Other medical supplies existed in case something happened during her absence for whatever reason, but the pain or swelling of a simple bruise wasn’t life threatening. But Druig had seen its value over the centuries caring for the humans in his compound without Ajak. It had herbs and roots that would help speed the healing, and Druig thought they might need it if their plan to stop the Emergence got complicated, supposing they survived those complications. He was glad of his forethought now as he felt the cooling sensation of the balm easing the worst of the pain in his muscles. He closed his eyes, enjoying Makkari’s soft touch. He grinned as she finished and wrapped his hand around her waist, holding her close. “Thank you,” he signed. “Your turn.”
Makkari hesitated.
“You agreed,” he pushed.
Makkari sighed and shifted her position to sit on the bed beside him and began removing her own breastplate.
Like she had for him, he helped her undo the fastenings where her bruised body protested her attempts to reach. She stripped down to a breast band and Druig frowned. Like him, she had energy burns from Ikaris’s eyes, hers on her right shoulder. Her back and ribs were almost as bruised as his were where she’d been thrown through rocks herself. She had a puncture wound just below her throat and at each wrist that he didn’t understand. These didn’t look like Mr. Perfect’s doing.
“What happened?” he asked as he gently touched the skin below the wound at her throat.
“It was the Deviant. He tried to take my powers like Ajak and Gilgamesh. I don’t think he had me long. Phastos broke the connection,” she explained. “I think it’s why my speed hurts so much to use right now.”
“Guess you’ll have to keep it slow for a bit.”
Makkari pouted. Slow was boring.
Druig laughed, “I’m sure the beautiful Makkari will race again. But you have to let yourself heal. I’m just glad Phastos was there. Ajak and Gil didn’t have him.”
They both sat still for a moment, the weight of the loss of their fellow Eternals lay heavy between them. Makkari broke the stillness, signing “They’d be proud of us. Of you.”
“They’d be proud of you and Sersi. Phastos. Thena. Not me. I failed. You got hurt because I failed.”
It was Makkari’s turn to break him out of his spiral. She grabbed his hands and held them against her heart. She held him there for a few moments before letting him go to sign, “You did not fail. I am okay. My heart is still beating, and my speed will return. This is not your fault. Ajak and Gilgamesh would be proud that you tried.”
Druig was shaking his head, “Ajak always hated when I used my power.”
“But she came around in the end. It’s why Ikaris…” her hands halted. She could not bring herself to sign the words describing her brother’s betrayal. “I think she would have asked you to put Tiamut to sleep if she’d been able to. She loved you. We all love you.”
Druig didn’t argue further, knowing he would not win against her faith in their family. He didn’t know if she was right, but her determination was rooted in her love of him and her belief in him. It could be enough for him as long as he had her. He took a deep breath and gently began to clean Makkari’s burn as well as the wounds left by Kro. He applied her bandages, kissing each wrist once its bandage was secure, feeling her pulse quicken each time. He applied the bruise balm over her back, taking pleasure in his ability to touch her bronze skin this intimately, knowing she trusted him completely. He’d held her in his arms before during her visits to his compound (just because none of the rest of them had seen her in centuries didn’t mean he hadn’t, but Kingo wouldn’t have known that) and it never got old. He could feel her buzzing mind ease and some of her tension release as he gently massaged the balm into her muscles. Pain ceased to be her most surface level thought as she began to radiate something else.
“I love you too, my beautiful, beautiful Makkari”
She turned to face him, smiling. “Just don’t ever leave me again, my sweet, gentle Druig.”
“Deal,” he whispered as he leaned closer to her smug mouth and pressed his lips to her.
He was gentle and mindful of both their battered bodies as he gripped her waist and pulled her into his lap on the edge of the bed. She wrapped her arms around his neck and let him guide her into a straddled position around him. He ran his fingers along her spine as she combed hers through his soft dark hair. She softly bit his lower lip and found his tongue with hers, letting the taste of him take over her senses. His voice vibrated as he groaned his pleasure. He pulled away from her mouth to trail kisses along her jaw, down her neck, lingering just below her bandaged collarbone.
There was a knock on the door. Druig and Makkari froze. Neither had been paying attention to anything outside of Druig’s room. Makkari had missed the vibration of footsteps and Druig had missed the presence of a consciousness approaching. Thena. Makkari slid off his lap and turned towards the door, but Druig caught her arm. He signed without voice, “My room remember? I should answer.”
Makkari nodded and let him pass. Druig opened the door just enough to see Thena, keeping Makkari out of direct line of sight.
“Hello, Thena,” he greeted casually.
Thena looked at Druig’s bandaged and bruised torso with calculating eyes, assessing his condition. “Phastos says he thinks he can get us airborne in an hour. He wants everyone to meet on the bridge to discuss where to go from here.”
“Noted. Just give us a minute.” Fuck. He hadn’t meant to say “us”.
Thena raised an eyebrow. She looked Druig up and down again slowly. Silence hung in the air for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, she said “Just remember that broken ribs need time to heal. Even for Eternals.”
Druig’s pale skin changed at least fifteen shades of red as Thena smirked at him. She left down the hall, and Druig closed the door. He heard a loud burst of laughter and looked back at Makkari as she clutched her sides. She didn’t stop laughing and fell over sideways on the bed, tears of mirth gathering in the corners of her eyes. Her laughter gave way to a few painful gasps before she regained control, but she continued to smile broadly.
“Oh yeah? It’s funny, is it?” he crossed the room back to her, playfully leaning over her on all fours on the bed.
“Yup! You were so red!” she continued to chuckle as she signed.
“Careful, Makkari, your ribs need time to heal,” he quoted Thena teasingly as he poked her lightly in the side.
“Painful or not, I think I needed that.”
“Well, I’m glad I could be entertaining,” Druig smiled back at her. “I do love when you laugh though. Your joy makes it all bearable.”
It was Makkari’s turn to blush. It wasn’t nearly as dramatic as Druig’s, but still there as she felt her cheeks and ears grow warm. She cupped his face in one hand before pushing lightly on his shoulder, so he’d let her up.
“Phastos is waiting for us,” she reminded him.
Druig groaned, unwilling to go back and deal with other people when he could have Makkari to himself instead. Makkari smiled at him, having no psychic power, but knowing him well enough to read his mind anyway.
“We can always come back here later,” she promised.
“I’m going to hold you to that, Darlin’,” he stood up and offered his hand to help her up as well.
Once standing, she strode over to the wardrobe and opened it. He was surprised by her confidence as she reached in to grab a shirt from among his.
“Really think no one will notice if you wear something of mine?” he asked.
She laughed, silently this time, and stopped to sign, “They already know for one. We’ve never tried to be secretive for two. I don’t want to attempt putting armor back on for three. And for four, this is mine.” She reached in and pulled out a black t-shirt from some metal band.
“Why do you have clothes in my wardrobe?” he asked, drawing out the word “my” as he pointed to himself, laughter in his eyes.
“That way they’re easier to grab when I wake up.”
“When you wake…Have you been sleeping in here?”
She rolled her eyes. “Have you seen my room? I lost track of the bed in the 17th century.”
Druig laughed. “So, you did miss me?”
“I visited you regularly.”
“You still missed me.”
“Pretty sure I saw you only a few months ago when I helped you with your villagers returning from the Blip.”
“And then you returned to the Domo and missed me.”
Her hands began to snap the words, “Fine. I missed you. I’ve missed you every day since Tenochtitlan. Every day that I didn’t have you. I missed you enough to visit you and look in on your project. I missed you when we were together because I knew I had to leave again. And I missed you so much when I’d return here that this was the only room where I wouldn’t feel lonely because it felt like you.”
Druig was taken aback by the sadness welling in Makkari’s eyes and the passion in her hands as she finally answered his question. He closed the distance between them and hugged her close like he had on the beach and let the tears in her eyes fall on his shoulder.
“I’m so sorry, my beautiful Makkari. I missed you too. I’m never leaving you again. Wherever we go from here, it’s together.”
She nodded and pushed away again. He helped her dry her eyes and pressed a soft kiss to her forehead before letting her go. She put on the shirt, and he put on a tunic of his own, slightly grumbling about his lack of less ancient options. She chuckled at his grumbling, not able to make out the words from their vibrations but gathering enough from context to make an accurate guess. They intertwined their fingers once they were dressed and headed towards the bridge hand in hand.
As they entered together, the other Eternals looked up at them. Sersi beamed and nodded in warm approval. Thena gave them a casual smirk before feigning disinterest, and Druig felt the blood rush to his ears again. Phastos just shook his head at them, unsure what to make of them. Sprite got up and reached out to Makkari, offering something in their hands.
“I found this among the ruined treasures of the past. It’s still in one piece. I thought you’d like to know.”
Makkari looked at the object they held. It was the Emerald Tablet. It had survived the crash. This piece of human history and culture was okay. This piece which had her name on it, that Druig had teased her about hunting down, always promising to keep her secret. This artefact which had helped transform her flirtations with Druig into the fully realized love that had lasted millennia, that she had finally tracked down a year ago but hadn’t had the chance to share with him yet. So many of her treasures had been destroyed, so much that she had preserved of the humans’ history. But not this. Not Sersi, Phastos, Thena, Kingo, or Sprite. Not her Druig.
Not letting go of Druig’s hand, Makkari threw her other arm around Sprite and hugged them tight, grateful to them for what amounted to an apology for their betrayal.
Druig surprised everyone and joined the hug.
We’re okay.