Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

A plate shattered on the wall.

The crack split the air, the fractured ceramic falling in three pieces on the ground. Steven watched it out of the corner of his eye, taking a long sip of his tea. Cold and oversteeped. Dark days when you couldn’t even have a good cuppa.

A boot collided with a battered wooden chair, sending it skittering across the floor in a scene eerily reminiscent of a bar many months ago. It toppled over halfway across the apartment, rolling onto its side and bumping against the bed. 

Steven attempted valiantly to ingest a scone, only to find it dry and stale. Ugh. Maybe the food on Jake’s side would be better. This was truly metaphorical of their withered psyche. 

He had only begun to reach out and take a wedding cookie when a teacup violently smashed on the table, barely six inches away from his fingers. Fine china shattered into pieces, making Steven hurriedly jerk his hand back. The plate of wedding cookies was thoroughly ruined, coated in a light shower of shards and dust. 

“Do you mind?” Steven snapped. “I’m trying to enjoy my meal.”

“Fuck you! This is all your fault!”

Steven pinched the bridge of his nose. Hard. 

Jake looked ready to scream. The careful piles of books were already toppled, and a lamp rolled on the floor in a pool of glass. As Dad would say, he was getting it out of his system. Jake wasn’t a very angry person at all - none of them really were, they just all tended to shut down - and it was strange to see him like this. Destroying as much as possible. Maybe it was no wonder - Jake had never lost control of a situation so thoroughly in his weird little existence.

Patience. Steven took another sip of his gross tea, resigning himself to the tepid taste. He snuck a glance at the bed in the back of the room, where he could just barely see Marc’s black curls. Patience. He wasn’t great at it. But patience.

Slowly and evenly, Steven said, “You forced me out, Jake. You know that happens sometimes.”

“Yeah, to Marc ! Not to me! I’m better than that!” 

“Welcome to the real world, mano.” Steven closed his eyes, taking a pointed sip of his tea. “Nobody’s better than it.”

A plate sailed over his head and crashed against the bookshelf. He was going to destroy all of his plates and Plato at this rate. 

“What was wrong with you?” Jake stalked forward, breath heaving hard and heavy, and slammed a hand on the table next to Steven. Steven eyed it warily, ignoring Jake gripping the back of his chair and fencing him in. “Why were you acting like a baby? Even you aren’t that stupid!”

He must really not remember much from before the military. But Jake and Steven had never really overlapped that frequently. Jake believed that he had ‘started happening’ at around that time, but Steven quietly suspected differently. It was hard for him and Jake to realize how spotty their memories were. 

“I’m not a terribly good way to forget the bad shit’s happening if I realize it’s bad shit,” Steven said tartly. “I used to help Marc turn avoiding Mom into a fun game. Everything terrible filtered through me was either made fun or forgotten. This wasn’t that different. Let me guess - you needed to not be there? You needed to forget what was happening? You could have jumped out the window, but you couldn’t unrealize what you had just realized. I was the only way you could forget. You needed me, so I protected you.”

Jake bared his teeth at Steven, leaning in and attempting to loom over him. Steven refused to budge, focusing on fidgeting with his teacup. He ran a finger around the rim again and again in an endless circle. “I don’t need you. I don’t need anybody! I don’t need to pretend to be - I didn’t need to pretend he was just sleeping -”

“Then why did you?”

“Shut up!”

“Waking up in a stranger’s apartment covered in blood without knowing how I got there normally bothers me just a wee bit, Jake. If it didn’t bother me, then it means you couldn’t deal with it. You dissociated, and a version of ourselves that could deal with it the best kicked in.” Steven took a pointed sip of his tea, keeping Jake’s hands in the corner of his vision.

“The day I can’t deal with killing one idiot is a cold day in hell. Luke’s goddamn moralizing can’t give me a nervous breakdown bad enough to pull you out and turn you into an idiot. You - or Marc - something did this. But it had nothing to do with me, got it?” Jake jabbed a thumb at his own chest, scowling deeply. “I don’t need to be weak! I don’t need anybody to look after me! I’m not Marc!”

“It’s not about what you need!” Steven cried. “Are you stupid? Do you seriously think this is about you, Jake? Do you think this is - this is the Jake show, starring Jake, directed by Jake? It’s not! You’re not the star, you’re the character!”

Jake pulled back - Steven ducked his head, pulling his arm up to block -

But Jake had only pulled back to stomp away, and although he had obviously seen Steven’s cringe he ignored it. He paced the apartment up and down, biting at his thumb, walking as far as the bed with fluffy white comforters before turning on his heel and walking back again.

He finally calmed down enough to sit down heavily on his side of the table. He slouched in his chair, drumming his hands on the arm and tapping his foot. Steven silently reached over and poured him some tea. It was obviously cold, but Jake drank some anyway. 

“Thanks.” He paused a beat. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

“I shouldn’t have scared you.”

“I wasn’t scared.”

“I’m not a character.”

“You front whenever we need to violently murder people, Jake,” Steven said, exhausted. “We’re all capable of it. But you do it because it doesn’t scare you. If it scares you, Jake - what good are you?” 

Jake didn’t say anything.

“We were scared,” Steven said. “You weren’t fixing the problem. I came out and fixed the problem. It is as simple as that.”

When Jake spoke again his voice was rough and hoarse. “So what? If I don’t love murdering people I’m useless? I’m no good to you and Marc anymore?”

It wasn’t very helpful, but Steven couldn’t stop himself. He pulled a mocking face, fake sympathetic and more than a little mean. “So what? If I’m not the stupid kid I’m useless? Is that why you and Marc keep me this way?”

“Steven, you know that’s not -”

“It’s not? I’m not much good to you like this, Jake. You’re pretty convinced that you don’t need to have a life outside of Khonshu or remember our mission. I’m only good to you and Marc when I’m oblivious. Which is why I’ve only been allowed to front the past five months when I’m oblivious. So you and Marc can forget your problems and have fun .”

Jake sank in his seat a little, staring at the ground.

“If you’re humiliated, Jake, then you humiliated yourself. If Marc can’t wake up because he hates how much he needs us then he’s the one making himself completely dependent on us. And if I feel trapped, then I’m sitting in a cage I never try to leave. Guess we’re all idiots.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Stevie,” Jake offered weakly. “It’s just been us. We’ve been…”

“We’re here to help each other.” How many times could Steven say this? How long would it take until they listened? “Helping each other does not mean taking every bullet. It doesn’t mean doing everything yourself and protecting the other two from the world. It means that we handle things together .” He forced himself to soften his voice, to try and help Jake through a gentle outreached hand. Jake needed gentle. He never really got it. “It’s not bad that I showed up in that room. Okay? It’s not bad at all. It’s okay to be scared. I want to be there to protect you when you’re scared. But please just ask next time. Alright? Can you do that?”

Jake scrubbed at his eyes, breath hitched. Steven sipped his cold tea and waited.

Finally, he said, “Sorry for throwing things.”

“It’s fine, Jake.”

“No, I shouldn’t have done it.”

It was the first time Steven had ever heard Jake apologize for anything . He had thought the man was incapable. Fronting for so long was developing him in weird ways. It was a little fascinating.

“It’s alright. I forgive you.” He couldn’t help but look at the figure curled up in bed, and he knew Jake was looking too. “Even after all of that…”

“Hey, I’m not stopping him,” Jake said flatly. “I haven’t had to stop him. I put him to sleep and he hasn’t woken up. Model fucking tenant.”

“Maybe it’s like Sleeping Beauty,” Steven wondered. “Maybe we need Layla to kiss him.”

“Maybe we need you to kiss him.”

“Ew, Jake, that’s gross.” But Steven couldn’t help but frown anyway. He wanted to go and sit by Marc, stroke his hair like Dad did when they were sick, but somehow he knew it wouldn’t be welcome. “You needed me today, Jake. Like Marc needed you in the courthouse. But we need Marc. This can’t continue.”

“For the love of - not this again. I told you, there’s nothing he can do that we can’t do.”

“Technically, no.” Steven reached over and stole one of Jake’s puddings, stealing a spoon from the empty place setting next to him. There were quite a few place settings around him. He didn’t find the whole thing very funny. “But your friends seem to think it’s unhealthy to repress an aspect of yourself. Layla doesn’t have the man she married and she barely has us. Marc is the only one who knows how to negotiate with the courthouse and arrange our cases so we have any control. And Marc argues with Khonshu, which is a bit of a biggie.”

Jake slunk deeper in his chair. “You can -”

“I have no leverage. Khonshu listens to Marc. What happened in that room would never have happened if Marc was there and you know it. Whatever we’re always protecting each other from, Jake - Marc protects us from Moon Knight.” Jake opened his mouth. “Moon Knight is more than killing people, Jake. It’s about doing the right thing even when it’s messy. It’s about making judgment calls and sticking to them. It’s about balancing justice with humanity, vengeance with empathy, balancing you and me , and only Marc can do that.”

He didn’t always do a good job. Sometimes the balance was too difficult and Marc tried to choose the ‘all of the above’ option. Sometimes he just did things because he was scared. Sometimes he was just an asshole in general. But the only way anybody could never make the wrong decision was to make no decision at all, and Marc would always rather try and fail than do nothing. The mess with Jim Oler had been awful, and none of it would have ever happened if Marc had just stood aside and accepted what would happen. But he couldn’t. He wasn’t that kind of person. 

Matt’s words rasped in the dark echoed in Steven’s mind. Door number one and door number two. Steven and Jake were what lay behind those doors, but Marc was the one who had to choose. 

There was something that Jake knew, but he just couldn’t realize. He knew that his grand entrance into the stage of independence and autonomy was pretty convenient for Marc. When most people went into depressive comas they had to leave eventually - to shower, to eat, to deal with nagging wives. But Jake was taking care of all of that. He showered the body, he put food in the stomach, he dealt with Layla in the weirdest way possible. This was, of course, Jake acting entirely against Marc’s wishes, making decisions that had nothing to do with Marc and his basest desires to just stay in bed. Of course.

But Steven was no better. Khonshu had helped quite a bit, but Marc was the one who had wanted to forget. To have a corner of his life that wasn’t constantly falling apart. There had been a lot of things Steven simply hadn’t wanted to notice, because the secret identity never would. 

Steven forgot things a lot. He wasn’t always cognizant of it, but in his own mindscape he could see how frequently it happened. Steven helped Marc forget, so Steven had to forget - forget that Mom hated them, forget that Randall had ever existed, forget Khonshu. Dissociative amnesia was a bitch, and Steven facilitated the process. When Marc wiped his memories five months ago, no matter how intensely unfair it had been to Steven - to Marc it was probably just more of the same. The same that he needed so badly, the same that was easier than a Steven who kept him grounded instead of helped him escape. 

Jake was the main character in The Jake Show, but Marc was the talent. There was no script and the play was improv, but every character was meticulously crafted and perfectly suited for the narrative that Marc desperately tried to assemble and reassemble every second. Let’s play Steven Grant, fearless jungle adventurer. Let’s play Jake Lockley, the guiltless weapon of justice. Let’s play a perfect husband, a brother who made it to adulthood, a soldier who never hesitated. Moon Knight. Whoever that was.  

The alters weren’t acts. They weren’t fake. This was their lives, their real life. Steven wasn’t a fearless Indiana Jones, Jake wasn’t an unrepentant Buffalo Bill, and there was nobody they could be but themselves. The roles were real, but Marc was real too. There was a Marc outside of his characters, who was more than a killer or a failed husband, and he had to leave the stage eventually. He wasn’t a good person or a bad person. He was unchosen and unwanted and mangled and very weird, but he was just Marc.

That Marc - the Marc who was nobody else but Marc - needed to exist. Or none of this would work.

“I can hear you, you know,”Jake said grumpily. “If we’re such real people then why can’t I decide to be Steven, huh? What if I decide not to be Jake anymore? What then?”

“We just saw what happened.” Steven dug his spoon into the ramekin, slurping the cold and congealed rice pudding. “ Steven happened. Sorry.”

“You’re bringing up a lot of fucking questions about free will and personhood and autonomy and all that crap, you know that!”

“Go read the Torah about it.” Steven didn’t know how this worked. Anybody who said they did was selling something. Or, like, was God. Or Moses. If anybody other than God or Moses said they knew what was up then they were selling something. “If you know what I’m thinking then you know what we have to do. Come on, Jake.”

Jake didn’t say anything. They sat there in silence, looking at each other from across the table. It was a little bigger than Steven’s actual dining table, but the apartment was a little bigger on the inside. It was laden with teas and cakes and sandwiches, enough to eat for days, but somehow Steven never found himself standing up to put dirty dishes away. There were just place settings all around him instead: one for him, one for Jake, one right between them, one on the other side. Eat everything on one plate, then just move to the left. Of course. 

Finally, Jake said, “I’m still in charge.”

Jeez. Steven rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes, fine.” 

“We aren’t telling Layla about Marc until I say so.”

“You’ll have to say so real soon. How on Earth are you going to explain what just happened to her without you coming up? There’s no way we can convince her that I killed that kitty torturer.” The fact that Jake had hesitated on Steven’s behalf was actually a little huge, but Jake hadn’t seemed to realize that. 

“That’s my problem, not - we’ll improvise. You can kill people if you want. You’re a big boy. Makes sense that you’d kill a guy and get sadness stoned over it.”

“Is that what we’re calling it now? Sadness stoned? I was having a regressive dissociative episode.”

“You were high as a kite, buddy.” Jake stood up, scowling, and beckoned Steven upwards too. “So high you didn’t even bother figuring out what Luke said to Layla, which is a little important. Figure out what she knows and calm her down. Do Steven stuff with her until she stops bothering me.”

Good lord. Jake moved out of the way, and Steven sighed before moving to switch places with him. “What’s Steven stuff ?” Jake gave him a flat look. “Oh, that’s not - that’s not - that does not count.”

“A day . You were in there for a day .”

“It was our first anniversary! It was special and romantic!”

“ I’ve barely even touched a woman, but Steven fucking Grant -”

Steven sat down in Jake’s chair, already opening his mouth to make a very eloquent rebuttal to Jake’s only slightly true point, but he never got the chance. The table began rattling, the dishware shook, and by the time Steven understood what was happening they were already awake. 

Steven woke up in somebody else’s bed.

The duvet was all wrong, nothing like his meticulously chosen duvet that had to pass five different points of inspection. The bed wasn’t firm enough at all. And the sound of the air conditioner was completely different - loud and chunky instead of quiet.

He scrambled up immediately, fighting panic, desperately looking around for something familiar. The room was familiar - a little bit, maybe. Did Jake put him here? Did Matt have a studio? No, his home would never be this dirty or cluttered. And he would never let Jake into his home. Steven didn’t know how he knew that, but he was absolutely certain.

The studio looked like a tornado had ripped through it. It was a big studio, clearly sized as big as the inhabitant wanted it, but the inhabitant did not bother to clean. There were empty mugs everywhere, abandoned plates on the desk and table, and beer bottles crowded on the coffee table. A laundry basket slumped against the floor, coughing shirts and underwear, and there was a mysteriously wide array of random maps or pieces of paper thumbtacked to the wall. Three bookshelves lined the wall, stuffed with thick stacks of white paper and battered books, and another two shelves held an intimidating array of mysterious implements that was probably either trash or priceless antiques. 

A woman stood in front of a floor length mirror, buttoning a crisp suit. It was crisp and professional, making her look more like a bodyguard than anything else, but her tie was crisp and gold in capitulation to some occasion, with a large and clunky gold necklace in capitulation to somebody else.

It was, obviously, Layla. Even Steven knew that. She whirled around on her heel the second she heard Steven’s gasp, and she ran over the second she registered his wide eyes and fist clenched in the duvet. He registered too late that he had shucked the tank top and jeans for a soft long sleeved shirt and canvas pants - Marc’s clothing.

“Steven, is that you?” She hovered near the bedside, clearly looking for some way to fix an unfixable problem, and settled for shoving a water bottle at him. He accepted it, somewhat dumbly. “It’s Layla. You’re at my apartment. Everything’s fine.”

I can’t believe it. I cannot believe it. She lives like this. This is awful. She’s a grown woman. 

Steven took a long sip of the water - he did feel exceptionally dehydrated for some reason - and screwed the cap back on. He shoved the uncomfortable duvet off, pushing himself further upwards. “I know, I know. I’m back, I’m your Steven again.” For the first time in months, but she didn’t know that. Probably. Maybe. “I’m so sorry, Layla. I’m sorry for worrying you.”

“It’s alright, baby, it’s just fine.” She sat down next to him on the bed, reaching out and smoothing down his hair. It was a gentle gesture, betrayed only by the faint impression of a frown. “How much do you remember?”

“Not much. I wasn’t…I wasn’t really all there.” He looked around again, trying to register his surroundings and label it clearly in his mind. Layla’s apartment. Now that he thought about it, they did have some co-living issues… “Nothing after we left Luke. I don’t remember coming back here. My memory must still be spotty - I feel like I’ve never seen your apartment before. I didn’t know it was so…”

“It’s not that bad,” Layla said quickly. And more than a little defensively. “It’s - you know, everything’s in its place. It just looks that bad. But I know where everything is.”

Steven stared at her. Layla pushed an overturned ashtray away from sight. Finally, he blankly said, “I need to have a long talk with Marc about his Steven inspo boards.” And why there was so much Layla in it. It was so weird.

“His what ?”

“Metaphorical.” Jake was the one with the actual Pinterest boards, which…there was no time to unpack that. “Layla, I think we need to talk. Really, really talk.” What did I just say! We are not talking! “We don’t need to talk.” Seriously, Jake? Real mature! “I didn’t mean that. We do actually need to talk.” Shut up! “I take that back. Everything’s fine, how are you?”

Layla stared at them. Jake groaned. Steven also wanted to groan. 

After a long, considering moment, she said, “Yesterday was really bad, Steven. That was even beyond you a month ago. It was really scary. But I’m guessing something had happened that was really scary for you too. I’m not going to push you, and I’m not going to ask for an explanation right now. But when you’re ready to tell me what happened, can you let me know?” She faltered a little, in a way so unlike Layla that Steven almost understood how she felt yesterday. “And can it be soon?”

Steven reached forward and kissed her - deep and rich, further than the awkward Jake had tried to go. Layla froze, surprised, but after a second she kissed him back. Like their favorite poets, like their living habits, she kissed him with equal amounts of desperation and overwhelming sadness. As if they only had five minutes before they had to separate forever, through one way or another, and this was all they had. 

It was the first time he had kissed her in months. If someone had told him three months ago that he was kissing Layla El-Faouly , he would…probably have a crisis about entering somebody else’s marriage. Jesus, Marc. 

Layla pulled away after he finished unbuttoning her shirt, which was surprisingly muscle memory. Guess she wasn’t much for blouses. Gasping a little, she said, “I actually do have somewhere to be - it’s a little important -”

“You can spare ten minutes.”

Layla watched him take off his shirt, which seemed to help her decision. “If I fly there I can probably spare twenty.”

“Being an Avatar is only upsides, actually,” Steven said, grabbing her belt. 

Thirty minutes later, Layla extracted an exasperated promise from Steven to stay in the apartment until she got back that night. This was mostly accomplished through allowing him to clean the place, with strict instructions that he was not allowed to move anything on the desk, shelving, or bookshelves. She had to stay late at the party until after the last guest left, but those rich people always had country club afterparties anyway. Steven had to suppose that she was off stealing things again. Girlboss and all that.

He fell back asleep after she left - extended inner world fights with Jake were not actually that restful - and woke up a fuzzy thirty minutes later to the sound of a phone chime. His own phone was on the bedside table, but when he rooted around an abandoned pair of denim jeans on the floor he found another identical phone. He frowned, looking it over. Jake’s phone, which was only slightly a surprise. Had it been in his jean pockets the entire time? Man, he had been out of it. 

Someone named Jessica had texted him. Ugh. See what she wants. Steven’s fingers typed in the passcode, and he squinted at the Signal message.

Jessica: your wife’s tie is on backwards and we are TERRIFIED that u just had a quickie TERRIFIED 

Jessica: also mistys calling u a flake again u said that ud be here. I mean like she doesn’t want you here shes just calling u a flake

Hm. Who was Misty? Where did Jake say that he’d be? Jake felt confused too - about the second part, not about the Misty part, apparently she was a bitch - and he laboriously typed out a message back. 

Jake (but Steven, obviously): Hello! Are you one of Jake’s friends?

The answer came immediately. Jessica: is this a bit or

Jake? Want to fill me in? She sounds familiar. 

No, this is funny, keep going. 

That was a good step up from humiliating. Jake: Sorry, I’m being serious. I don’t know how much Jake told you, but I have a disorder called DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder) which means that I don’t always remember meeting people and why it seems that I’m speaking in the third person. Are we friends? How do you know Layla? 

Jessica: STEVEN STEVEN?

What does she mean STEVEN Steven?

Uh. Don’t ask. 

Don’t ask what!

Wait. Fuzzy, distracted memories were slowly seeping in. That’s right. Jake’s weird, mean-nice friends. She had been one of the meaner ones, wasn’t she?

Jake: Yes Steven Steven. I think we met a little while ago. Sorry about that a lot of stuff was going on at the time. I don’t remember any more about you and Jake’s friends than then, so I’m a bit lost.

The next answer took a little bit longer. She’s resisting the urge to squeeze dirt out of you. Jessica: Yes okay sorry. I’m Jessica Jones I’m your best friend!!! Or best friend when ur Jake idk sry. Ur wife is a client of ours and she’s helping us with a job right now. We still aren’t a gang. The jobs actually really boring we’re just doing security guard stuff. Ill tell misty this is why ur flaking but she might want a selfie for tmz reasons

Is she actually your best friend? But she’s so mean.

I’m not happy about it either.

I thought Luke was your best friend?

Are you fucking serious? Have you met the man? 

Barely?

But Jake seemed a little distracted by the security guard stuff. Steven thought he might be realizing something, but he got distracted by a quick follow-up text from Jessica. 

Jessica: update luke saw me texting you and now hes asking a lot of weird questions what the fuck have you been doing

Jessica: double update your wife is giving me shit

Jessica: triple update i hate your wife

Jessica: jk she’s cool

Jessica: we should double date sometime that’d be soooo funny. We should hang out more steven why don’t we do that. I mean i know why but we should do that. Tell Jake i want to hang out more let’s be friends

I might have forgotten something important. That was for sure. Jake had definitely promised somebody he’d be somewhere and he’d definitely flaked out on it. For the job…the same job that he had helped out with at the Met? 

Jake: I don’t see why not! :) That sounds fun and not weird at all.

Jessica: ur (jake) incapable of not being weird whoops somethings happening gotta go

Something was happening?

It was probably nothing. It really didn’t matter if they flaked out on helping with this one thing. They would do just fine without him. 

Just fine. 

Jake: Everything alright?

Steven did Layla’s dishes. 

Jake: ???

Steven folded the laundry (were all of these pajama shirts Marc’s?). He made the bed. He sat on the bed, staring at Jake’s phone. 

He called Jessica. She did not pick up. He grabbed his own phone and called Layla, who did pick up. 

She was out of breath, and Jake immediately recognized the sound of someone speaking while in a fight. “Steven? Is everything okay?”

“I’m fine, I’m worried about you!” Steven cried. “Are you in a fight? What happened?”

“I am definitely in a fight, there are six heroes here, everything is fine . We can handle - ugh! - these magic crystal monsters. We have it covered.”

“Layla, I can -”

“Gotta go, honey. Bye, love you!”

Steven stared at the phone, flummoxed. He shouldn’t worry, right? He knew Layla ate crystal monsters for breakfast. And all of the Heroes For Hire were there! He’d only get in the way, honestly.

Marc didn’t really like to do Khonshu things unnecessarily. He swore up and down that he wasn’t a vigilante. He just worked a job, and the job included what the American legal system might call vigilantism. You couldn’t catch them dead ‘patrolling’ or whatever it was Spider-Man was always up to. Steven sometimes wanted to be a little bit more of a superhero, but he wanted Marc to relax and be safe more. If Marc would rather spend time as Steven than spend time as the Weapon of Justice, then Steven was happy to front. He still didn’t know what Jake did all day. 

There was really no point in helping out. Six superheroes! They were fine. 

Steven sat on the bed, flicking his phone screen on and off. 

“Khonshu?” Steven called. “Can you come here, please?”

But, of course, he had never left. Steven blinked and he was there: sitting on Layla’s couch, only recently liberated of a stray towel and a depressing amount of bread crumbs. He was wearing a white suit, which was a fun detail that made Steven feel noticed if not strictly loved. 

This operation has been a mess lately. 

“Go bother Tony Stark, then,” Steven said waspishly. Khonshu visibly shuddered. “Is something happening at the museum? I have such a bad feeling. Is it just anxiety? I suppose it could just be anxiety.”

Do you remember when I connected Jake into the mystical explanar perceptions of magical energy and the spirits of man? 

“You mean when you taught him how to read bad vibes?”

Yes. You can access it too. Somewhat. You should listen to your feelings. 

His feelings. Steven closed his eyes and focused hard on his feelings - which mostly felt like exhaustion and worry and the existential discomfort that happened when he was stuck doing Khonshu stuff on no sleep. So anytime he was doing Khonshu stuff. 

But he didn’t feel anything magical. Just a lot of anxiety, which always felt like certainty that something had to be wrong even if he didn’t know what. 

“I’m just being silly,” Steven said weakly. “I’d just be a burden. We can’t run in and start doing superhero stuff. Jake would just start killing people and I’d panic and we’d just make everything worse.” 

Ugh! Jake jerked their head to the side, grimacing. “We don’t need Marc to wipe our own ass, Steven! If you’re so worried then let’s just go!”

Jake. You sensed the ill intent of our sinner, yes? Jake nodded fastidiously. Your friends have not caught them yet. The source of the magic seems to be quite powerful. I believe that the sinner’s death will stop it. You will be able to trace them when your friends have failed. 

“Then what are we waiting for?” Jake demanded. He grabbed the grimy work boots abandoned by the side of the bed and started shoving them on his feet. “Let’s go kill the son of a bitch. They’re heroes, I’m for hire, let’s go!”

Can’t they handle it themselves, Jake? Steven pleaded. Why? What was so bad about Jake handling it? Why didn’t he want Jake to do anything cool? Because if you go then we’re going to end up killing him, obviously! 

Jake looked at Khonshu. “You want him dead, Boss?”

Khonshu hummed, tilting his head back and forth. It’s no business of the Eannad. But his magic disrupts the already weakening balance between the mystical and mortal planes. We ought not to suffer it. 

“Why do you hate magic so much?”

It sucks. And magicians are annoying. 

“Retweet on that.” Jake finished tying his laces, standing up and cracking his neck. “Can we fly there? I wanna fly there. I never get to fly places.”

If we don’t go then he’s not going to die. Let’s just -

“If we don’t go Layla could die,” Jake snapped. “I got my priorities. Now shut up about it.”

There is no room for hesitance in justice, Jake , Khonshu warned. What happened yesterday ought not to happen again. 

If I am awake then it will definitely happen again! Steven snapped. Jake abruptly felt a little uncomfortable. I’m not going to let you run roughshod over us! This is a partnership, Khonshu. You and Jake are a partnership too, even if you don’t act like it!

The sense of discomfort deepened, and Jake had to fight the urge to push Steven downwards and make him shut up. He wasn’t going to pick Khonshu over Steven, that was stupid. “Look, Stevie, I’m the breadwinner here. I do the work and I provide for this family. Jobs are dirty sometimes, that’s just how they are.” 

Dirty and degrading and humiliating and stressful and - and that was a one way ticket to sadness stoned town, no thank you. Jake effortlessly kicked that train of thought to death and buried it in a shallow grave. Marc Thoughts, Tee Em: not even twice.  

Your job isn’t doing everything he says!

“Is your job making everything so damn difficult? If you’re gonna have a problem with everything then I can ground you again just fine.”

Are you ever going to start listening to me? I thought you were done being a domineering arse for a change. 

I see you two have some conflict over your life decisions again. Khonshu shrugged, standing up. If you and Jake are equal partners in the body, then I suppose you two can compromise - 

“We are not equal partners! I’m in charge! And we are not compromising!” Jake shrugged his shoulders, rolling the suit over his body. “Let’s get going, we have some slackers to save.”

Let us exact our vengeance, then. Oh, oh! Jump out the window! This is going to be so cool. 

It was incredibly cool. Steven’s sulking dampened the fun, as usual, but Jake pushed him aside. He could get over himself. 

It’d be fine. They’d figure something out. The Heroes wouldn’t be super happy that he murdered another one of their baddies again, but if they wanted to stop him so badly he wouldn’t fight them on it. Khonshu was one thing, but Misty on a rampage was another. 

It’d be fine. 

The room stunk of beer and laughter. 

The living room was packed to the gills with idiots, celebrating their official inauguration as Idiots For Hire. The Heroes For Hire and Daughters of the Dragon ( seriously ) had collaborated frequently in the past, but due to financial situation blah merging clientele blah competing offices blah monopoly on superheroes blah, they were officially combining their operations. They were keeping the name Heroes For Hire, because that fucked and Daughters of the Dragon was weird. It sounded like a ‘70s yellow peril film. He did not say this to Colleen, because Marc was the suicidal one. 

Apparently finances were a big part of it. Ever since Jessica moved into Luke’s room full time they had a brand spanking new room available for rent. This place was about to get so damn crowded all the time. This was awful. Jake was never coming back. 

He was sandwiched between Jessica, who was occupied light-heartedly beating him on the head with an abused pillow for cheating in Mortal Kombat and dinging her gamer pride, and Danny, who was talking animatedly with an amused Colleen. They had giant sibling energy, which somewhat explained why Colleen looked permanently as if she was about to eat Danny alive. Apparently he had boarded with her and her father while he was getting his feet in America, which explained the rest. 

Matt sat in his usual armchair (“Do not touch -” “You don’t even live here?”), his feet propped up on the coffee table and downing his usual insulating two beers against the massive noise strain. Misty sat across from Jake at the coffee table, sitting cross legged and slowly sipping her gin and tonic as she stared him down into nothing. Their conversation had not been very fruitful, even if it was necessary. 

“And you’re the vessel for an Egyptian god,” Misty said slowly. “And the god tells you to kill people.”

“You damn Christians need to start throwing that Jesus shit out the door,” Jake said, shaking his flask at her. “Gods love kill kill death. For some’a them it’s their whole thing. It’d be way sketchier if I said that I was the Avatar of, like, the god of love and peace. That’s my wife. She hates it ‘cuz she’s violent.”

“First of all, I’m an atheist and a conscientious objector to religion.” Without looking, she threw a pillow at the instantly attentive Matt. “Second of all, are you sure you’re not just crazy? Not saying Egyptian gods don’t exist, but statistically it’s more likely that you’re crazy.”

“Oh, I’m absolutely crazy. But that’s unrelated.”

“ Completely unrelated?”

“Completely unrelated.” 

“I don’t know, Misty,” Colleen said, leaning over and flicking her lightly on the bionic arm. “There’s a strong connection throughout history of religiosity and mental atypicality. What we’d call a schizophrenic is what a lot of people would call someone receptive to a god’s voice.”

“Yeah, you’re really helping your case against atheism,” Misty said flatly. 

“All I’m saying is that mental illness is a construct. Not saying that the voices make Jake an actual prophet -”

“Closer to a pharaoh,” Jake said testily. “Ezekiel I am not. I have seen no wheels.”

“ - but nobody would have been calling him crazy and wrong back then. You know what I mean?”

“Do you have any idea about the state of mental health services in America?” Danny asked Jake. “It’s awful. Luke recommended a few books about it. Did you know the Cook County Jail is the largest provider of mental health services in Cook County? And that one third of the homeless population have severe mental illnesses?”

“Bro, that was almost me.” Jake took a long drag of his flask, letting the whiskey burn bad memories away. “If I hadn’t given up and become an evil murderer guy then the military woulda left me homeless and crazy on the street.” He raised an eyebrow at the intrigued Misty. “Then I woulda been shuffled off to jail because somebody decided homelessness was illegal. In and out, in and out, for the rest of my life. What kind of life is that, huh?”

“Why doesn’t anybody do anything about this?” Danny cried, fired up. He was always fired up. Everything was a surprise to him because none of it made any sense. He saw so much wrong in America - Luke and Matt and Misty and Colleen and even Jake himself showed him so much wrong - and he could never believe it. It was a little weird. Jake had grown numb to all of it. Seeing someone else who cared made you want to care too. “Why are we putting money into policing the homeless instead of helping them?”

“Okay, our public outreach programs were underfunded -”

“It’s not bad actors in the institution, Misty!” Colleen cried, as she had undoubtedly said a million times. “It’s the institution that is bad! It was built for bad! All cops are -”

“You just deserve better than that, Jake,” Danny said. He was so serious and angry. “I don’t care if you murder or whatever. If somebody had just given you better , then you wouldn’t have to murder. Society failed you and everybody like you. It shouldn’t have happened.”

“And this is why Hell sucks as a concept!” Misty cried, throwing out a hand. “If we follow this train of thought, why is Jake going to burn in Hell for murder when all of the fat cats taking away every oppertunity are going to heaven because they donate a million to the church?”

“Jake is not going to burn in Hell,” Matt said testily, assuaging an anxiety that Jake did not have. He was with Misty on this one. “The church doesn’t decide who goes to Heaven, God does. And God understands nuance. Hell isn’t a punishment, it’s to learn.”

“Does God not care if you’re Jewish and don’t believe in hell?” Jake asked flatly. 

“For a Catholic you don’t seem to like the church too much,” Misty said, sipping at her gin and tonic. 

“Hate the sinner, hate the sin.”

“Wait, you’re Jewish?” Danny asked, squinting at Jake. “How can you be a high priest for an Egyptian god and Jewish?”

“The high priest thing’s a day job.”

“He has a lot of day jobs,” Matt whispered to Danny, sotto voice. 

“And this is why the American incarceration system is a fundamentally Christian concept based on punitive punishment for crime,” Colleen said, jabbing a finger at Misty. “There’s a seventy percent recidivism rate for inmates with substance abuse and severe mental illnesses. Jail only makes their problems worse and it makes no attempt to help them. People like Jake are punished just for being sick. Danny’s right, it fucking sucks.”

“Are we talking about prison?” Luke asked, shoving away Jessica’s pillow assault. “Because I have some things to say on the fucking prison industrial complex.”

“We know -”

The conversation shifted after that. They moved onto other things, and they didn’t seem to have thought twice about what they said about Jake at all.

It would have been suspicious if Jake had just sat there, so he jumped back in after a bit with his usual snide witticisms or asides or whatever. But his heart wasn’t really in it. Jake always knew something that everybody around him didn’t know, but this time it sat heavier in his chest than most. 

It wasn’t a bad weight. He didn’t know what it was. It sank in his gut, but it expanded too. It was light and heavy, big and small. He couldn’t identify it. He didn’t know what it was. 

Maybe Marc or Steven would know. He couldn’t exactly ask. If they knew about this - secret, squirreled away nights, where nothing existed outside of this apartment and nothing was out to hurt them - then they’d take it away. Somehow, they’d take it away and ruin it. They always ruined everything.

Nobody had ever told Jake all of that. Ever. He was a smart guy, he knew all about the military industrial complex and the school to prison pipeline and the what the fuck ever. He knew how the world worked, if only from books and Marc’s own life. Hell wasn’t even real. He wasn’t oblivious. He knew how they’d been wronged. 

But nobody had ever said it to him. Nobody had ever - with that look on their face, with that intensity - told Jake that he didn’t deserve it. That society had failed him. No self-righteous Christian had ever said with such complete certainty that Jake wouldn’t burn in Hell. That he didn’t deserve the punishment of his life, and that he didn’t deserve it just for being sick. Nobody ever had…

Khonshu. Is what we’re doing really justice? 

What do you mean ? His voice echoed strangely in Jake’s addled head, but he dismissed it. He watched Colleen and Jessica go toe to toe in Mortal Kombat instead, discovering that Colleen was insanely competitive. 

I don’t know. We know Ammit wasn’t right. That we can only judge people on what they have done, not what they might one day do. But these guys are saying that you can’t judge people based on what they have done either. That there’s just too much stuff surrounding everyone to really say who’s a bad person or not.

It’s an intriguing and incorrect viewpoint we should debate into the ground. No, Khonshu. No. They were not doing that. Spoilsport. But consider what you’re saying, Jake. If what you propose is true - if you can’t judge anybody based on what they have and haven’t done - then what do you judge them on? How do you judge them and deliver justice? 

“I don’t know,” Jake said. “Maybe we can’t. Maybe we shouldn’t.”

Khonshu withdrew from his mind. Jake was acutely aware that he had just said something super sacrilegious. 

Oh, well. It didn’t matter. Jake projected that thought very loudly and somewhat anxiously. He didn’t care. His philosophy and moral compass didn’t matter. That was Marc and Steven’s business. No matter what, no matter what surrounded them, Jake would do what he had to do. 

Maybe that was the final lesson of philosophy and social consciousness: what did it matter, so long as you still had a job to do?

“Are you talking to the guy in your head again?” Jessica asked, mashing the buttons on her controller. “He saying I’m looking super sexy going beast mode on Mortal Kombat?”

“You are in your thirties.”

“Thirty one, it barely counts.”

But Jake couldn’t help but smile. It felt foreign and strange on his face. Why? He smiled all the time. “He’s saying it’s very bad for my serial killer agenda that I joined up with you guys.”

“Really? Because we’re heroes? Because we don’t actually try that hard to stop you from murdering people.”

“Sure,” Jake said. “Yeah. Because you’re heroes.”

His heroes. Maybe. 

No, that was stupid.

Maybe.

The night dragged on and they grew drunker and drunker. Mortal Kombat was abandoned for telling more and more outlandish stories - Colleen was not descended from a long line of samurai, that was fucking stupid - and they broke into stupid toasts over the new partnership. Which would undoubtedly  be very lucrative and financially sound. More financially sound than the last few months. Which had not been that great. But it would be better going forward. Promise.

It would be better going forward. They all agreed. And Jake had to agree too. 

Finally, Jake made his own toast. Or maybe it was more of an announcement. He stood up, holding his refilled flask out into the center of the assembly. Everybody glanced at him with mild interest. He swayed slightly where he stood, but projected his voice cleanly and firmly. 

“Thought you all oughtta know!” Jake raised a finger in the air, sloshing the whiskey in his flask. “I have a voice in my head!”

Jessica sipped her beer. “This is old news. Wow, Jake’s crazy, surprise.”

“A god speaks to me!” Jake said loudly, drowning her out. “He tells me to kill people!”

“You meet so many interesting people through freelance work,” Misty said, downing the last dregs of her gin and tonic. “I’m so glad I quit the force.”

“Bitch, I’m glad you quit the force too, I wouldn’t hang out with a pig.”

“Because you’re really overflowing with options, Jessica.”

“If the god tells me to kill you, I will kill you!” Jake jabbed the finger in the air heroically. “I will hesitate! I will feel bad! But I will! Never trust me!”

“You are such an edgelord,” Colleen said. 

“Are you sure you should be here, Jake?” Matt asked, concerned and serious. “Aren’t you missing your My Chemical Romance concert?”

“Uh,” Luke said, “I think he might be -”

“Fuck, I miss MCR,” Misty said. “Whatever happened to Paramore? Anybody here remember Paramore?”

“Oh, fuck yeah, Paramore -”

They had been pretty drunk. Jake didn’t know if they really registered what he had said, or if they had remembered it in the morning. Maybe he was too much of a coward to ask.

The only person he was certain remembered was Luke. Maybe it was a side-effect of Jake shooting him in the face. Or maybe Luke just knew guys like Jake, in whatever strange and sideways way anybody could be like Jake, and he knew that sometimes the best people like him could do for the people around him was a warning. 

The only thing Jake could ever give them was a warning. And if he did his damndest in every other possible way - if he worked hard and made sure that Steven and Marc couldn’t jeopardize this peace, that Khonshu wouldn’t take it away from him, that it could grow and flourish and become something that was finally all his - then they wouldn’t even know. He made every deal under the sun with Khonshu to keep his eye away from Matt or Misty, and if they hated him for it then they hated him for it. If everything went well they would never know how hard he had to work to keep them safe from himself. If both sides of his life thought he was some crazy serial killer who murdered all day, then that would keep them safe from each other. The biggest gift Jake could give them, bare repayment for what they had done for him, would hopefully never be recognized or noticed. 

Like his gifts to Marc and Steven and Layla. Like the way he lied to them from necessity and fear and burning resentment. Nobody had to know.

Jake downed the last of his whiskey. Nobody would ever know the real Jake Lockley. It was best that way. 

The Met was easy to find on the best of days - Central Park, giant fuck-off building, hard to miss - but something about the police sirens and ambulances really eased the way. There was a SWAT barricade up and everything, but Jake easily sailed past it and landed on the roof at an easy dismount. None of the police were even pretending to enter. Figures. Fuzz catches whiff that a superhero’s on the scene and suddenly it’s their break hour. These guys didn’t deserve Layla. Wakanda was on thin ice.

The police guys definitely noticed him, but he didn’t give a shit. He had no idea what the government thought his deal was and he had honestly never given it a second thought. According to Misty, as of two weeks ago he was ‘ seriously on some lists’, but even SHIELD would have a tough time fighting the Ennead on whether or not he had the right to do his job. This was not technically his job, but they’d back him up. The courthouse was cool like that.

How to enter? Jake walked easily across the roof, hopping down ridges when necessary and relying on the magic to keep his footing across glass roofs. The windows were shuttered, so that wasn’t the easiest point of entry. His knives could cut through just about anything, but it wasn’t the most subtle entry point. 

There was a big American statue garden near the center of the Met, known for its beauty and neo-classical statuary produced as part of an 19th century push to connect burgeoning American colonialism with Roman Imperialism. This was important to Jake normally. It wasn’t super important right now. Maybe he could enter in through here? He had no idea how strong the glass was, and the knives weren’t as good at cutting through such thick glass. Maybe -

The glass shattered outwards, and Jake watched as a distinctly inhuman thing exploded out of the ceiling and went sailing onto the roof. It skittered across the glass, howling and scrabbling for purchase, and Jake managed to get a closer look at it. 

It was pure black, with a smooth and glimmering surface. Vaguely quadraplegial but headless, its body was composed of cut and jagged crystal. All in all, Jake could confidently describe it as an eccentrically wealthy wiccan’s obsidian recreation of the Boston Dynamics dog. Nifty!

Jake shot it, sending it flying off the roof and landing on the ground. He heard a faint crash, then a police siren. This was going exceptionally well. 

He looked down through the helpfully constructed hole and, predictably, saw his friends fighting monsters. Luke and Misty, specifically, which was no surprise - Danny and Misty were Luke’s preferred partners in a fight. Not Jessica - apparently he started micromanaging. 

Jake grabbed both edges of his cape and neatly stepped forward, plummeting down the hole. 

He snapped his cape open, letting his intimidating silhouette bear down above them. Luke and Misty looked up, eyes widening, just in time to see Jake land feet first on a particularly adventurous crystal dog. It shattered, making his legs shake with the impact, and he landed heavily on the ground feet first as his flared cape settled around him. 

Another dog leapt, and Misty easily punched it aside with her bionic arm. It skittered on the ground, narrowly missing priceless statuary. Thank god Jake had landed in the empty pedestrian area - he’d never forgive himself if he threw magic monsters into that Tiffany window. 

“What is that costume ?” Misty yelled, shooting another adventurous dog. It skittered backwards - down but not out. “You look like dude Thor had a costume party with a Party City sheet ghost.” 

“Believe it or not, this is my regular suit,” Jake said, faux wounded. “I just use my incognito suit around you guys. I flew here, I had to take the cape.”

“You can fly ?” Misty cried, outraged. “Since when can you fly ?”

“Since I almost died in an Egyptian desert?”

It was embarrassing even looking at Luke. What he had seen was - awful. Truly, completely, totally humiliating. At least it was Luke and not anybody else. Jake hadn’t wanted Luke to see that, but anybody else besides Layla seeing that would have sent him off to live in the woods for the rest of his life. Luke was definitely frowning at him, attention thoroughly torn from the crystal dogs he effortlessly shattered with a single blow.

“Layla said you were safe at home. Should you be here?”

“Seriously? We’re just fine.” Jake kicked one of the dogs in the face, sending toppling backwards ass over teakettle. “Better than we have been in a while, actually. Stevie and I talked some shit out.”

“Did you actually , or are you just saying that so I’ll stop harassing you?”

“Do we have to do this here?” Misty asked. 

Jake sighed. He shook out his hands, relaxing his body, and let the suit roll over into Steven’s version. Steven pulled his twin escrima sticks from their holsters immediately, twirling them in his hands.

He smiled broadly at Luke and a very pretty Black lady, who did a double take. “Hello hello! Awfully good to see you in better circumstances, Luke, I am truly sorry about that business yesterday. I was stoned on sadness, as one might say. Although I am still interested in that autograph! If I’m going to keep meeting such nifty people I think I’ll start collecting them.”

“What the fu -”

Steven jumped forward, swinging the escrima stick and shattering the crystal dog leaping for the distracted lady’s head. She ducked away, shards of obsidian dusting over her afro, and Luke quickly grabbed another approaching dog and tossed it through the ceiling again. 

“What’s your name? I’m sorry, I don’t really know what Jake gets up to.” Steven kicked aside another dog, grimacing as the motion shook up his foot. Jake genuinely did not feel pain. “I’m Steven Grant, with a ‘v’. I hope nobody’s been telling you too much about me, they’re always getting it all wrong.”

Luke grimly brushed the crystal out of the stunned woman’s hair. “I know. Don’t mention the accent, he’s entirely serious.”

“Jake’s is just as fake,” Steven threatened. “We’re all going down together on this ship.”

“I feel like I’m meeting a celebrity.” The woman summoned a professional smile for him, nodding sharply. “Misty Knight. Former Detective, current PI. You’re the bane of my existence but I am really digging that suit.”

“Jake’s the bane of our existence too, you aren’t special,” Steven said cheerfully. “And that’s so sweet! Marc called it Colonel Sanders, which was really rude. I’ll have to tell him that our new friends think it’s perfectly nice.”

“We are not -” Misty stopped short, before continuing, “You know what? Sure. I’ll be friends with the psychopath neo-Pharaoh’s alternate personality. Why not. My life’s weird enough already.”

“Don’t use psychopath as a pejorative term, Misty -”

“But he is!”

“You guys are great! You seem really nice, Misty, let’s get brunch. I have to put Jake back on the line right now. Bye, it was good to meet you!” The suit rearranged itself into Jake’s suit, and he rolled out of the way of a flying crystal dog. “Don’t lie to him about the suit, Knight, it’s fucking hideous.”

“My life’s so dumb,” Misty said, roundhouse kicking a magic dog. “I am definitely taking Steven up on that brunch offer. I don’t even care anymore. All of this is fine.”

“Cut out your pig nostalgia.” Luke grabbed the legs of one crystal dog, using it as a bludgeon to destroy its friend. “Jake, there’s still people in the building we haven’t evacuated. Can you help Layla get them out of here?”

“You’re always putting me on escort duty,” Jake said cheerfully.  He was the improbable choice, but he was also the best at it - between his healing and his 24/7 hypervigilance he wasn’t a bad hand at protecting people. “You got it, Boss.”

A frown twitched at Luke’s lips, but Jake was already walking away. A flying shard of crystal impacted one of the security force fields around the statues with a harsh zap, flying away. Wow. Anti-supervillain attack measures. That’s how you really knew a place was fancy. 

Can we beat up more dogs, actually? That was fun. Victimless violence.

That is a waste of our valuable time. I’ll find something for you to guiltlessly beat up later. 

Your definition of guiltlessly or my definition of guiltlessly?

You feel guilty existing in public, of course it’s my definition.

  The Met halls were yawning and empty, devoid of everybody and everything but the occasional angry dog. Jake let his suit melt back into his incognito suit, cracking his neck and stuffing his hands in his pockets. Khonshu said that he’d be able to feel out the bad guy. If he focused, like trying to recollect a faint smell, he could almost smell it again. 

The presence you sensed in that room is still here. Hurry! The constructs will not abate until he is defeated. And the constructs look nothing like dogs. 

They look like Boston Dynamics dogs, Steven said eagerly. You know, the ones that’ll be used for evil soon? 

They are simply quadrupedal. Not everything quadrupedal is a dog. Khonshu paused a beat. And another thing. Why do you call all dogs ‘puppies’? Puppies are baby dogs. A fully grown adult dog is not a puppy. 

All dogs are puppies, Khonshu!

That objectively is not true.

Wow. So this is what it was like. No wonder Marc was crazy.

Jake followed the pull in his gut. He tipped his cap down over his face, dodging dog attacks as he found himself shoving open the door into the employee only area. It was the same area he had snuck into earlier in the week. It wasn’t even abandoned: he could hear employees yelling and screaming in the distance. He even saw one young woman holding a wooden crate run past him. Was she saving some priceless artifact or something? That woman probably only got paid fifteen an hour. Put in the work they pay you for, ma’am.

He stopped by the conference room and stuck his head in, predictably finding it abandoned. The security team were probably busy doing whatever and the rent-a-cops had definitely all fled. He hoped the Heroes weren’t wasting their time shaking down anybody out there. Maybe he could call them and let them know he was on the tail of the perp. Nah, why would he do that. 

You’re a real team player. 

We’re a team, aren’t we? Jake asked breezily, stepping back out into the hallway. He wandered into a fancier looking hallway, one with chairs and everything. This is teamwork, what you and I are doing right here. Look at us, we switched seamlessly. 

Horrendously, Steven sounded a little amused. You were jealous, weren’t you. 

I was not.

You were jealous that you didn’t get to tag team fights with me and Marc. 

Oh no, boo hoo. I gave up my ability to get motion sick during a fight for the chance to fight back to back with real heroes. My life was perfectly fine before you started butting in, and it’ll be perfectly fine after. 

Jake stopped in front of a door. He looked it up and down, noting the wood finish and frosted glass window. He checked the nameplate next to the door. Andrew Merridew. Huh. 

He tried the door. It was locked. Alright, that was suspicious. The scent he remembered was heavy and thick around the door, a creeping miasma of ill-intent. He should probably cut the door open. Or…

Jake knocked politely. One second passed, then two. He knocked again.

And, to his eternal surprise, a voice called out from inside the room. “Come in.”

The door unlatched and Jake didn’t pause. He stuck one hand inside his jacket, keeping a hand on his knife, before swinging open the door and stepping inside.

Merridew sat at his desk in a suit and tie, as if it was just another normal work day. The desk was a beautiful dark brown carved oak number with a very nice finish. The sight was a little ruined by the explosion of obsidian across the surface of the desk. It covered every square inch of the desk, jagged and sharp, jutting as high as a foot upwards. 

That wasn’t quite normal. Jake walked into the office anyway, kicking the door shut behind him. 

I think we found our baddie. Yeah, no shit Steven. Useless commentary from the peanut gallery. If Steven thought he could get away with this Director’s commentary just because Marc put up with it he had another thing coming.

“I’m sorry,” Merridew said, “do I know you?”

“Oh, you know, I was here for the donor party and once those monsters showed I just got so turned around and lost.” Jake scratched at his nose, flashing his giant white knife. “What’s that thing do?”

Merridew looked him up and down, which Jake allowed. He was remarkably calm for a guy wrecking the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but maybe he was just in the zone. Like when you took a test. The only real weaponry in the room was a single revolver, its holster balanced in his lap. “I recognize you. You’re that chauffeur who couldn’t speak English.”

“And you’re the head of security helping the Heroes For Hire look for the mole,” Jake said flatly. What had been the point of that, Khonshu? “Guess we’ve both told a few whoppers lately.”

But Merridew just grinned, light and easy. It made the back of Jake’s neck prickle. “I get it. You were scoping the place out, weren’t you? That’s clever. Insert yourself into the museum through the Heroes For Hire, listen in on all of their conversations and gain access to their computers. You’re not a bad thief, my friend. I would hire you for my team if I wasn’t about to disband it.”

Told you not to doubt me. 

Are you serious! Steven cried. Would it have killed you to just tell us? How’d you even know about that?

I am also quite talented at, as you say, reading vibes. The bad vibes from the administration were quite strong. Jake’s specialty is going below suspicion. He can go places and gain insights that the Heroes For Hire could not. Or give impressions that he was doing such a thing. 

 And you couldn’t tell us this because…?

Jake didn’t ask. 

I asked! 

I tune you out.

Jake grinned. He knew it was a little maniacal, just to the left of how a human should look. He wondered if there was anything inhuman about him. If anybody ever looked at him and saw ‘character’ and knew. If everybody could see just by looking at him.

“Guilty. Jaime Garcia at your service. You gonna turn me in?”

“Señor Suerte himself? I feel like I’m meeting a celebrity.” Merridew waved a hand, running his other hand along the edge of the desk before leaning back in his chair. “Nah. Go ahead and take the art. I couldn’t care less. I have all the treasure I need right here.” He rubbed his thumb on the obsidian crystal, gentle and reverent. “Do you like it? Found it on the black market. These were found in the body of some mutie the cops exterminated. Apparently the guy was a wannabe superhero. Called himself the Living Monolith. The crystals in his body could propagate themselves endlessly. No real human could possibly use it, obviously, but a talented magician like me can tap into the potential. I’m making better use of it than he ever did.”

This is a terrible person. 

“A real magician?” Jake asked. He made a low, impressed noise, shaking his head. “A thief has no room in this world anymore. You’re all magic people now, superhuman. And here I am just trying to get by.” He looked around, clearly gripping the knife a little tighter. “You’re okay with me taking the art? There can’t be a bigger score in here.”

“Do you want me to just tell you about the bigger score?” Merridew asked, faux-incredulous. 

Jake shrugged. “Thought I might get lucky.”

“Hah! You really have. No, there’s no other score. I’m not like you. I’m not some cheap thief looking for money.” Merridew grinned, brushing a thumb over the Monolith crystals - not so living anymore. Jake could still feel the residual energy from the mutant's appropriated corpse, as if he lived on within them. They were in pain. “I just wanted this Wakandan art exchange to fail spectacularly. We’ll never have another ‘cultural exchange’ with them again.” His voice dripped with derision. “That country is the worst thing that’s ever happened to America. They’re stealing the art we found and discovered, for one. Repatriate my ass, that art belongs to us. But it’s just their sense of entitlement that gets me. They run around with spears and lip piercings and they have the nerve to act like the greatest country in the world? Yeah, maybe in Africa. Acting like kings of that shithole continent doesn’t make you better than America. I know they’re behind Clinton’s child trafficking cabal.”

“Ah,” Jake said.

Is our baddie a QAnoner? Steven asked, alarmed. I thought normal bad guys were QAnoners, not magicians! 

Statistically, I guess some of them have to be. Jeez. This was going to depress Luke. He ate up those think-pieces on Afro-Futurism like Playboys. Imagine telling the guys trying to give you flying cars to keep their cars because you don’t want handouts from uppity Black people. 

Shithole?! Khonshu yelled.

“But you didn’t come in here for fun, did you?” Merridew asked, snapping Jake back to attention. He was looking at Jake with one eyebrow raised, like a teacher asking if that’s the answer you want to give. “Did you want to kill me? I know you do. I know the look in a man’s eyes when he sees the man he intends to kill.”

“And you let me in anyway?” Jake asked archly. “That’s confident of you.”

“My hand’s on my gun,” Merridew said. “You’re the confident one.”

“I think I have good -”

A bullet ripped through Jake’s shoulder. He stumbled backwards from the impact, watching the blood gush from the wound and stain the white. Always staining the damn thing. What he wouldn’t give to be…Night Knight. Knight of the Night. Who wore black.

Another bullet hit his heart. It was a good shot. Jake felt his ribs crack in two from the impact, sending splinters of bone through his alveoli. 

Oh my god - wait, do you even feel that?

He could not feel it. Jake didn’t feel pain. Built different. He grinned widely instead, ignoring the look of shock on Merridew’s face as he drew his own gun. “I think it’s my turn. You gonna survive the same thing?”

“What are you, some kind of ghost?” Merridew cried. He watched in fascinated horror as the wounds closed themselves back up, as Jake’s ribs knit themselves back into place. “That’s inhuman.”

“I guess you could call me…” Jake paused dramatically. Steven groaned. “...a specter, yeah.” He raised his gun, lining the sight with Merridew’s head. “Say hello to Reagan in hell for me, asshole.”

“You really don’t want to do that,” Merridew said quickly. Jake pointedly cocked his gun. “I’m serious. I already pressed the emergency button. The superheroes will be here any minute.”

Had he? Damn. Jake scowled. “More reason to get this over with fast.”

“Please do. Take the fall, Suerte. Take all responsibility for my death.” He paused a significant beat, slowly holding his hands up. “For the art theft conspiracy. The black magic. For the acts of aggression against Wakanda. You killed the director of security when he tried to stop you, didn’t you? I’ll die a hero. And you’ll take the fall for all of it.” Merridew smiled, spreading out his fingers. “Put your gun down and let me live. Take the Wakandan art. It’ll be great for me. We’ll both end the night happy, employed, rich men.”

Jake stilled. 

He didn’t care about his own reputation. It could hardly get any worse. And he trusted his friends. They wouldn’t blame him for the art theft or the black magic. Definitely the murder, but that was just because they knew him.

But what about the Heroes For Hire’s reputation? He didn’t only have himself to worry about. If the public got wind of it then he knew who they’d believe. His teammates would look like the villains here. 

“I turned the camera in my office back on,” Merridew said. “In case you were wondering.”

Jake grunted, readjusting his grip on the gun. “Audio?”

“Nope. Got anything you want to say?”

“I dunno.” Jake’s gloves creaked on the handle of the gun. “The superheroes are coming?”

“That Wakandan bitch, yeah.” Merridew’s eyebrow ticked. “This is an obvious deal, Garcia. You gain nothing by killing me. Just go and take your art.”

I hate this guy as much as you do, Jake, but you’re right. They can’t connect this back to your friends. Let’s just go. Someone else will arrest him!

He’ll get off, Khonshu said, with remarkable restraint. There will be no proof. Always the sticky issue with magical crimes.

Then the Egyptian court can handle him! We can arrest him!

The Ennead wouldn’t care about this. It’s outside of your job purview from the courthouse. Kill him, Jake. 

But his friends -

I told you. Has Jake Lockley been seen with the Heroes For Hire?

And, come to think of it, he hasn’t. 

He didn’t enter the building with them. He wasn’t seen talking to them. He had worn his mask while speaking to Luke and Misty. Jake’s association with the Heroes wasn’t common knowledge at all. Even the Avengers didn’t know. 

If Marc was here, if his voice was nattering away, he’d say something about becoming the bad guy again. How he’d stay the bad guy. How do you come back from this?

“Why are you hesitating?” Merridew demanded. “Take your priceless art and go! What do you have against me that you want me dead so badly?”

Kill him, Jake. 

Jake!

Jake shot Merridew between the eyes. The explosion sent the crystals rattling with the impact, almost shifting off the desk, and Merridew fell to the floor. 

Jake lowered his gun, staring at the smoking body on the floor. “You insulted my wife.”

“ What? ”

Ah. The superheroes were here. 

Jake slowly turned around. Layla stood at the door, fully kitted out in her Avatar costume. She looked unhurt, but a little worse for wear. Fighting crystal dogs for forty minutes would do that to you.

He wondered what he looked like. Standing over the chief of security’s body with a gun, wearing an outfit she had never seen before. Who was he to her? Was he anything? Were Jake and Layla anything at all?

“Uh. Hi.” Jake flicked on the gun safety, stashing it in its holster. “I thought I’d come check up on you. Everything okay?”

“Did you kill Merridew?” Layla demanded. “Did you - because he -”

“There were many other reasons,” Jake said quickly. “That was a very small one, two percent. Unless you think it should be bigger. It can be ten percent if you think that’s manly.”

“Why did you kill my client, Marc!”

That did it. His name in her mouth. Never Jake’s name. Marc’s hand in hers, Marc holding her, Steven kissing her. Never Jake. It was always Marc.

After everything he did, after the past three weeks of complete freedom, he gets called Marc . What, he makes a fucking sacrifice and Marc gets the credit? God forbid Jake ever do anything for anybody but himself. 

“Marc’s not home right now,” Jake hissed. Something was ripping itself to shreds in his brain. This wasn’t fair. None of this was fair. Why did Jake have to be the bad guy again ! “The cat’s away and the mice are out to play, sweetheart. And this mouse -” Jake kicked the desk table aside, sending thousands of fragments of crystals falling to the floor and shattering. “ - is pretty damn sick of Marc, Marc, Marc! Steven, Steven, Steven !”

Jake, this isn’t the time to have a tantrum. Let me out, I’ll -

He shoved Steven down. And fuck Steven too.

He didn’t look at Layla. He focused on kicking the desk again, watching with half-satisfaction as more and more crystal shards rained down from the desk. Look at him with horror or whatever, he didn’t give a shit. Who needed naggy wives anyway. He had guns. 

“So you’re the third one, right?”

Jake halted, foot frozen halfway up. He dropped it, finally turning to look at Layla. Her arms were crossed, and she had a hard expression on her face. Not happy. But - not happy with him, maybe. Was she looking at Jake?

“What gave it away?” Jake said flatly. “Was it the - uh, everything ?”

“Yesterday made a few suspicions pretty obvious, yeah.” Great. Was Jake secretly not a very good liar? He was a great liar. It was his whole thing. “Why did you kill my client?”

Oh, whatever. “He was the mastermind. Big bad. His motives were actually just super boring and racist. Bossman wanted him dead, so I killed him. Hopefully there’s a clause in your contract that breaks it if the guy tries to kill you.” He eyed the security camera above them. There was no opportunity for this. They couldn’t exactly hug and make up right here. Or ever. “Listen, sorry for pretending to be your husband a few times or whatever, but I couldn’t care less. I need to flee from another crime scene and you have a mess to clean up.” 

He tried walking past her, but she wouldn’t move. Jake tried to gently push her to the side, but she still wouldn’t budge. What was wrong with this chick?

“You are coming with me and we are talking,” Layla said, tone 100% ‘done with Marc’s shit’. “And you are explaining that Bossman wants him dead bit. If Khonshu is sending you out on your own to secretly murder my clients -”

“Khonshu takes care of me!” Jake snapped, and Layla stopped short. “He’s the only reason any of this was possible! Just because Marc and Steven are ungrateful for fucking immortality doesn’t mean I am!”

But Layla just looked at him, searching and strange. Nobody had ever looked at him like that. Jake almost couldn’t stand it. “What are you, then, Khonshu’s weapon? That and nothing else?”

“No! I mean - yes, but no - shut up!” Jake shoved at her to move, a little harder, but she pushed an arm against the other side of the doorway. “My life’s none of your business. You’ll get Steven back in the morning, alright? Is that what you’re so worried about?” His throat closed up. He didn’t really know why. “You are going to wake up in the morning and Steven is going to be right next to you. And I’m going to make sure that happens every morning. That’s what you and Steven deserve, Layla. So just let me do it and get out of my way.”

“I don’t accept that,” Layla said calmly. “You’re not going to run away from this one. Three weeks is long enough to hide from me.”

“Can we do it in a room without a corpse ?”

Layla shrugged. “Eh. Corpse’s a corpse. You see one, you’ve seen them all.”

Jesus. There were authorities. This woman didn’t care about anything. “Whatever happened to giving me space?”

“Whatever happened to not killing my clients?”

Layla. He had Layla . Layla was in front of him, she was looking at him. And what was he doing about it? He had so many dramatic first lines for her. He had run over their introduction in his head a hundred times. It was going to be right and perfect and make him seem like a good person who exhibited acceptable levels of homicidality. It was going to be at a perfect forty five degree angle, everything perfectly in line.

But he had always known it would end up like this. That it would end up like Luke, like anybody he cared about. Standing over a corpse with a smoking gun. 

How could he have anybody like this? How could he have anything? Jake was mutually exclusive with Steven. His character didn’t allow for this. Marc could walk off the stage, could take off the costume and go home, but Jake couldn’t. Why did he ever think he could have a normal life? Layla’s known him for two seconds and she already hated him. Everybody always hated him.

Everybody but Steven and his friends and - everybody meaning Marc, but that was always enough. It didn’t make any sense that so many people in this fucked up little city liked him, because Marc always said that he and Jake were unlikable people. The mean voice in Jake’s head was stronger than the rest of it, stronger than reality, and it always had been. Jake would know.

“What if I like killing your clients?” Jake asked pleasantly. 

Layla froze. “What did you say?”

“You heard me. I like murdering little assholes like that.” Jake stepped away, pasting a big grin on his face. “You should have heard him go on and on. His causes and crusades. I always cap those guys. I get sick of watching ‘em suck their own dicks.”

Layla stared at him, eyebrows furrowed. Not the right reaction. Get angry at him. Come on. “What are you doing?”

“Assassinating people?” Jake cried, exasperated. “Executing people? Ring a fucking bell? Newsflash, honey, your husband’s got a secret personality just for serial killing. And there’s not much I want to talk about. Now if you’ll excuse me, my favorite bodega’s gonna close in thirty minutes and I want a pastrami.”

But Layla was not reacting correctly. This was annoying. People reacted correctly to Jake almost all the time, it was easy. She was just staring intently at him, as if she was trying to figure something out. “You’re the one who executes the criminals at the courthouse. I knew it couldn’t be Marc. He was never upset enough afterwards.”

“I’m not even sure those courthouse guys know my name,” Jake said proudly. “Yeah, I do Ennead work and Khonshu work. Khonshu’s work is a bit more - ah, extrajudicial. A lot more exciting, too.” He jerked his head at the corpse, keeping the grin. “This one was just for fun. I was bored sitting around at your place.”

“Does this work on Marc?”

Jake stilled. “Does what work?”

Layla just ran a thumb over her lower lip. In thought . What was wrong with her! “He told me that as a kid he was terrified he would grow up and become a violent serial killer because of those movies he watched. Is this where that ended up? I always wondered what he was doing trying to protect me from Steven, of all people.”

“I’m not lying,” Jake said blankly. He pointed unnecessarily at the corpse. “Mass murderer. Where did I lose you.”

But Layla just shook her head. “It’s far more likely that you would call yourself all bad than you would actually be all bad. After all that lying this past week do you honestly think I’d believe anything you tell me? You shouldn’t even believe yourself.”

“Layla,” Marc said, “you don’t understand, you really don’t understand.”

“Then explain it to me,” Layla said simply.

Marc could only shake his head, struck dumb. “That’s not something you want to know about me.”

“There’s no part of you that’s unacceptable to me, Marc.”

“This isn’t about Marc!” Jake yelled. “This is about me! Tell that - tell that to me, Layla.” His voice trailed off, chest seizing hard and still. “Layla, please say that to me.”

“Sure,” Layla said, even and easy and certain. “But I can’t do that until you tell me who you are. Who you actually are. What’s your name?”

“Jake Lockley,” Jake whispered. Even after all this time, even after introducing himself again and again - it felt like the first time. As if it was anything but a name lifted off a random corpse’s driver’s license, an ID used just because the cooling body looked a little like him and it was convenient, until the name became so familiar it began to fit easily in his mouth. As if it had only been his victim’s name until now. “It’s Jake Lockley.”

He felt like Jake Lockley now. Layla was smiling at him, and Marc was feeling the same thing he was feeling in perfect tune, and they were together. Why did he only feel like himself when they were together? How could he not?

“It’s good to meet you, Jake Lockley,” Layla said, and Jake couldn’t fight the hard gasp for breath. “There’s no part of you that’s unacceptable to me, Jake. I trust you, because I love you. You can’t change that.”

“Oh,” Jake said. “Okay.”

The room stunk of beer and laughter. 

Jake was sandwiched between Jessica, who was occupied light-heartedly beating him on the head with an abused pillow for cheating in Mortal Kombat and dinging her gamer pride, and Danny, who was talking animatedly with an amused Colleen. They had giant sibling energy, which somewhat explained why Colleen looked permanently as if she was about to eat Danny alive. Apparently he had boarded with her and her father while he was getting his feet in America, which explained the rest. 

Matt sat in his usual armchair (“Do not touch -” “You don’t even live here?”), his feet propped up on the coffee table and downing his usual insulating two beers against the massive noise strain. Misty sat across from Jake at the coffee table, sitting cross legged and slowly sipping her gin and tonic as she stared him down into nothing. Their conversation had not been very fruitful, even if it was necessary. 

And Marc sat behind her. 

He was sitting against the wall, surrounded by his own empty beer bottles. He was dressed in a white tank top and tight black jeans stuffed inside grimy work boots. His legs were straightened in front of him, one bent at the knee, and he watched the happy scene with wide eyes. Not in disbelief. Sadness, maybe. It was impossible to tell. Jake didn’t understand the feeling in his own chest - something heavy and something light, something small and something always growing. 

Jake slowly stood up from the couch, disentangling himself from Jessica and picking his way across the array of beer bottles. He meticulously stepped through the minefield until he stood next to Marc. He wanted to look down on him, to loom and look big, but he ended up sighing and crouching next to him instead. 

“What are you doing here?” Jake asked. 

Marc didn’t answer. He just watched Jake and his friends laugh and argue, complaining incessantly about the rights of people who nobody cared about. People like Marc and Jake. 

“Have you been here the entire time?”

He expected Marc to shake his head, to deny it, but he just swallowed. When he spoke it was hoarse and weak, as if he hadn’t spoken in a long time. “I’ve been going through your memories. Sorry, I guess…”

“It’s fine,” Jake said magnanimously. “Which ones were you looking at?” 

“The one where you met Luke and Danny. When you met Jessica.” Marc hugged his knees, drawing himself tighter. “When you met Matt and a few weeks afterwards. This. I was just trying…I just wanted to understand. I didn’t get it.”

Jake sighed, plopping himself down next to Marc. He spread his legs out, casually leaning against the wall in a mirror image of his pose as he sat on the other side of the table from Jessica as she told him a sad story. “Thanks for finally trying, I guess. What did you learn?”

On the couch - in the memory - Danny spoke impassionately to an inscrutable Jake. “Do you have any idea about the state of mental health services in America?” Danny cried. Jake’s stone expression hadn’t even twitched - the emotionless exterior perfectly hiding the tumultuous awe and pain inside of him. “It’s awful. Luke recommended a few books about it. Did you know the Cook County Jail is the largest provider of mental health services in Cook County? And that one third of the homeless population have severe mental illnesses?”

“You were right,” Marc whispered. “You deserve this more than I do. You - you’re functional. You do Khonshu’s jobs and it doesn’t bother you. You do superhero detective stuff with a team. You have friends. You even cleaned up the apartment…you’re right, Jake. I can’t do this.”

It should have felt good to hear. It was the one thing that Jake had wanted to hear. The one thing he had always tried to squeeze out of Marc, that acknowledgement. The concession that Jake was worth more than the rest of them. Even though his purpose was small and cruel, even if his life was just the scraps of happiness he eked out in the night. 

But it had been a long three weeks, and Jake had emerged at the end of it a little different. Jake hated growing up. It was lame. Even the good stuff got boring and less good. Sometimes the good stuff only felt good for a little bit, and then you realized that it wasn’t so great after all. That it wasn’t really what you wanted. 

“I haven’t exactly been knocking it out of the park,” Jake said pointedly. “I’ve been a bit of a dick to Steven and Layla. I did have that total breakdown over one little murder. The Jake Show didn’t really survive contact with the enemy.”

“Still better than me.” Marc’s hair was messed up and clumpy, and the bags under his eyes were thick and purple. For a guy who had gone Sleeping Beauty the past three weeks he looked like he hadn’t gotten a second’s rest. “Take it. I don’t want it anymore. Just promise to look after Steven.”

Steven. Where was Steven? This shit was Steven’s job. Jake didn’t do the pep talks. He did the ‘say random bullshit to you until you give me what I want’ talks. This wasn’t his wheelhouse. Steven was probably fronting or something. Useless as ever. 

Jake and Steven didn’t overlap, they didn’t interact. They didn’t know how to work with each other. They’d barely even talked. They had never switched in and out like Marc and Steven. Jake didn’t need Steven, because Steven was weakness and Jake was strength. And Marc…

Damnit. Damnit! Jake hated growing up! This sucked. No wonder Marc was so depressed all the time. The real world kept on changing you. The Jake Show hadn’t survived contact with the enemy because Jake hadn’t survived contact with the enemy. Jake was supposed to be better than character development. He was supposed to be built different. 

God. Okay. Here we go. 

“You just deserve better than that, Jake,” Danny said. He was so serious and angry. “I don’t care if you murder or whatever. If somebody had just given you better , then you wouldn’t have to murder. Society failed you and everybody like you. It shouldn’t have happened.”

Jake pushed away from the wall and turned to Marc, folding his legs cross-legged and facing him completely. “You wanted to get it, huh? Listen. What did Danny just say? He’s a lot smarter than we are. What did he just say?” Marc looked away. “What did Colleen just say? Misty? Matt? What does Jessica know about us? What does Luke accept? Tell me, Marc.”

Marc bent his legs and buried his head in his kneecaps. God, this was like pulling teeth. 

“Do you remember when Steven held your hands and told you Randall wasn’t your fault? He didn’t even forgive you, because there was nothing to forgive. He said Mama was wrong about us. You were there, asshole, I was in a sarcophagus. You remember that.” 

Marc fisted his hands in his hair. With gentleness he didn’t know he possessed, with care he didn’t know he was capable of, Jake reached out and gently extricated Marc’s fingers. He held Marc’s hand tightly, pulling it down so he could grasp it with both hands. 

“I’m not your fault. A lot of people and institutions and gods failed us. You always picked the option that let us survive, Marc, and I’m the part of you that wants to survive. And I’m proud to be that part. Do you get me? I’m very proud to be the part of us that wants to live.”

Marc squeezed his hand. He still wouldn’t look at him. Whatever, he didn’t need positive feedback anyway. At this point Jake was saying this for himself. He was saying it to himself. 

“I fought tooth and nail for this life and these friends because I want to live so damn badly. But life has to be more than just wanting to live. There is more to life than just refusing to die. Your brain is not full of evil, shameful delusions. Your life is more than death. Your brain has some pretty neat shit inside, and your life has some pretty good people. If you leave, then you’re abandoning all of that. And you’ll never have anything better. Never again. Do you hear what I’m saying?”

Marc finally raised his head, and Jake saw that he was crying really hard. He looked like Steven when he cried - his whole face red, expression crumpled just like a kid. He looked like a drowned kitten. It made Jake smile. Did Jake look like that when he cried? He really had no idea. It would be a funny thing to have in common. 

Marc dropped his legs, finally settling into a cross legged position that mirrored Jake’s. They weren’t a perfect mirror, not in this way or any other, but it was nice to finally try and move in time with each other. Jake took Marc’s hands, cupping them over his own.

“There is more to life than me,” Jake said simply. “There is more to life than Steven. There is you. Underneath everything you’ve done to survive, you remain. And you aren’t an expendable part of life. Life has to be you too. Real fucking sorry about it, but them’s the breaks. All your mistakes and fuck-ups. Death and taxes. All your good decisions and especially your bad ones. All your apologies. You can’t run away from that. And Steven and I don’t like being the way you run away.” 

Jake pressed his thumb into Marc’s palm, letting Marc’s hands curl over his. “Your coping mechanisms are an engine running on empty. I’m not your fucking drinking problem, Marc. We can be good, healthy ways for you to deal with things. I know we were the only way you had for a very long time. But if you keep using Steven and I in the most toxic way possible then - I don’t have to say what’ll happen then, it’s fucking happening and it’s blowing up in your face. It’s burning Layla and Luke and Steven.” He took a deep, shaking breath. “Steven told you Randall wasn’t your fault. I’m telling you that I’m not yours. There’s nothing left to punish yourself for. At this point you’re just punishing everybody else. And they didn’t do anything wrong, man.”

Marc had started sobbing halfway through his speech and hadn’t stopped. Jake didn’t think he could.

“I’m sorry,” Marc sobbed, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry -”

“That’s boring, don’t do that.”

“Jake, I’m sorry…” Marc bent in half, tightly clenching their hands together. Inseparable - but they always had been. “Jake, I love you, I’m sorry. It’s not your fault. I’m sorry, it’s all my fault, it’s not yours, I’m sorry -”

“Bro, shut the fuck up. What did I just say. Stop.” Jake lifted their hands until he lightly punched him in the nose. “We’re not doing the lame Jake and Marc dance right now. Normally you’re dumping your self-hatred on me and I’m encouraging it because I hate you too and…whatever, this isn’t my therapy hour. I’m talking to you as your Jake, alright? As the Jake you made to protect you. I’ll be a self-centered dick out there, but here I’m your Jake. So shut up and listen to me.” Jake was at fault for a lot of this, but he could talk with Steven about that later. Time and a place for everything, that was their motto.

Thankfully, Marc calmed down. His crying died down, but he hadn’t let go of Jake. He didn’t look at him. Deep in the mindspace like this, he wasn’t quite Marc. He was always some strange, primal, hysterical voice - nothing more than Marc’s base instincts, the first voice in his head. Jake and Steven were always erudite and complete, something more than they were in the real world, but Marc was always debased. He was still curled up in on himself - talking, as always, to himself. Sometimes, in some ways, he only ever spoke to himself. It had only ever been Marc.

“I love you, Jake,” Marc said. “I’m sorry I can’t stop hating you. I’ll stop. I can’t keep doing this. I don’t want to live like this. I love you, I love Steven, I just don’t love me, and - Jake, it’s so hard. I’m so tired and it hurts so much and it’s always so hard.”

“Yeah, I know. Do me a favor.” Jake slowly extricated his hands from Marc’s, pushing his chin up instead until he finally looked Jake in the eyes. “Wake up. Hang out with Jessica until two in the morning playing Call of Duty. Drink too much Monster. Tell her that. Tell her just that, okay?”

“She’s gonna make fun of me,” Marc said miserably. “She’s such a bitch.”

“Yeah, and then she’s going to tell us all about how she can’t stop reliving her sexual assault and how it makes her want to peel her skin off with a knife. And then we are going to sit next to her and hold her hand until the urge passes. And then we’re going to go back to playing Call of Duty. Live your life, Marc. Just like that. Support Layla the way she supports you. Just like that.”

“Can’t you do it?” Marc pleaded. He reached out for Jake again, already desperate for that comfort, but Jake didn’t give it to him. He couldn’t help him stand up this time. “Can’t you do it for me? I need you, Jake. I can’t do it by myself.”

“Look around you, idiot. Does it look like you’re by yourself?”

Marc looked around. He stared at the scene as if he was seeing it for the very first time, as if he had only just realized that he was surrounded by people who cared about him. As if he had never realized why Layla always stood beside him, or that Jake and Steven were always there to pick up his slack. 

The primal voice that lived in Marc’s chest, the voice that had started screaming a long time ago and never stopped, would never truly stop, accepted something. Fucking finally . 

“Okay,” Marc said. “Okay. It’s…your wheelhouse, I guess.”

“Great. I need to go back to my own problems now. I have so many and I just ignored all of them to deal with you. Again.” Jake leaned back, cracking his neck. He looked backwards, watching his friends laugh and talk and argue. It was a good memory. They all were, really. Every memory Marc had combed through - they had all been good. The whole damn thing had been good. “Go, Marc. Stop wasting your life. We’re worth more than that.”

Marc wiped his face. He pushed himself up - wobbly, then steadier. He picked his way across the sea of bottles and pillows, carefully stepping around Misty and over Matt’s legs. He looked around, uncertain and scared. Jake watched him, desperately trying to fit himself into this new and weird thing. Trying to discern how to hang onto it, how to keep something good in his life. 

There was an empty spot between Jessica and Danny. Slowly, with great caution, Marc sat down in it. Jessica resumed leaning against Marc, as if nothing had ever happened and he had never left. He tensed, hunching his shoulders awkwardly, before he forced himself to relax. Danny went back to ranting at him about his new novel fact of the day as if he hadn’t walked away.

Jake watched them. He leaned against the wall, spreading out one leg in front of him and folding the other close to his chest. He grabbed an adjacent beer bottle, sniffing it suspiciously. Was this Coca Cola? 

Whatever. He took a long swig anyway, enjoying the burst of energizing sugar on his tongue. He watched Marc relax and smile at Danny, nodding along to what he had to say. He watched Marc laugh, letting Jessica lean on him.

Jake rubbed his eyes. The best thing he could do for any of them and they wouldn’t even know. Wasn’t that the breaks. 

The wheels of their life ground into motion, scraping and screeching with a harsh metal squeal, before they picked up steam and began moving again. Marc and Jake began moving again, and in a sure and silent way Jake was confident that they were moving towards something. Whatever it was - 

Well. He’d find out when they got there.

Jake leaned back against the wall, grinning into his soda. Sounds like fun. 

Marc woke up. He had no idea where he was, predictably.

Twin bed, uncomfortable and cheap. Surprisingly nice sheets. Air conditioner thumping loudly, soft light streaming in. He opened his eyes and sat up.

He was alone in a small and relatively bare room. He looked down at himself, noticing that he was in unfamiliar black sweatpants and a plain grey sweatshirt. There was another bed across the room from him, and an open closet containing a lot of suits and some half-familiar clothing. Marc swept his hand underneath his pillow for his knife and did not find his knife. That wasn’t great.

Marc looked around the room. He brushed his feet on the dusty, slightly dirty hardwood floors. He breathed in and out, tasting the stale air. Somehow the air felt amazing, cool and new on his ragged face. He felt himself exist in the world, and for a strange and obscure second it felt like everything he had ever wanted. 

Marc got out of bed. 

He was in somebody’s apartment. A lot of somebody’s apartment. The living room was pretty big for what was hopefully New York City, but it was a bit of a pigsty. There was obviously a half-attempt to keep it clean, but just as obviously everybody involved had stayed up last last night partying. Great. Best case scenario, Jake had ended up at someone’s house party and crashed in the guest bedroom. Worst case scenario…

The knife wasn’t under his pillow. That got Marc. He and Jake never slept without a knife under their pillow (Steven kept it under the bed, then kept on acting surprised whenever he found it). He must have felt pretty damn secure in this place not to even keep a knife on him. Maybe he just knew there were no threats. 

Marc investigated the dining area, which was unexpectedly mostly a table and beer cans, then stepped into the kitchen. So many tortilla chips. These people ate terribly. Probably some kind of party house for college students. What the hell was Jake doing with undergrads? 

Well. Marc propped his hands on his hips, surveying the kitchen. He was super hungry. There were Honey Nut Cheerios, but he wasn’t really feeling cereal right now. Maybe pancakes?

Definitely pancakes. Marc started taking out the mixing bowl and pancake mix as quietly as he could. Ten years in special ops with countless stealth missions under his belt: useful for avoiding waking up other people in the apartment. 

He was almost done stirring the batter when he heard footsteps behind him. Somebody large, purposeful and confident. Trained? Trained. A fighter. Not military or ninja, but definitely trained. Not an undergrad. 

He didn’t comment on Marc. Marc casually put the mixing bowl back on the counter before reaching over and withdrawing a paring knife from the knife block. 

Marc turned around and brandished it at the intruder. It was a man - a huge man, whoops - who immediately stopped short when he saw Marc pointing the knife at him. Both his eyebrows tilted up in slight surprise. Slight? 

It was surprisingly difficult to speak, but he had no idea how long he’d been under. He eventually forced himself to rasp out, “Where am I?”

The man slowly and obviously raised his hands. He still didn’t seem that impressed. Jake, what the hell have you been doing? “Steven, it’s Luke. The kitchen knife’s a good look on you, but you’re perfectly safe. You’re -”

“Steven?” Marc demanded. He lowered the knife, fully aware that it would crumple like tin foil on the man’s skin. “You know Steven? What about Jake?”

The man’s eyes widened in real surprise for the first time. “You’re kidding me.”

Marc scowled. “Answer the question.”

“This is awkward.” Luke scratched the back of his head, looking around the kitchen. “Why are you making pancakes if you don’t know where you are?” Marc squinted at him, insulted. “Right. Everybody in this apartment is both Steven and Jake’s friend. I’m guessing you’re Marc. It’s good to finally meet you.” Marc squinted further, even more insulted. “Uh. Want some help?”

Marc considered the matter before deciding that it was too early to consider anything. He replaced the knife in the block and went back to the stove, writing the man off as a threat. Anybody whose first reaction to a man pointing a knife at him was to reassure Steven that he was safe… “Fine. Make the bacon.”

“I guess we’re doing a fry up. That’s fine, that’s cool. I’m not hung over or anything.”

“Keep complaining and you aren’t getting pancakes.”

“Why do you sound like my mother?”

Marc smiled, cranking the stovetop on and letting the gas burner flare to bright life. “Your mother know you’re living like an undergrad in a frat house?”

Luke smiled too. And, for some bizarre reason, Marc knew it was because of Marc’s own smile. How strange. “Alright, first of all, my mother is very proud of my life choices -”

“Uh huh.”

It wasn’t a big apartment, but the entire place had to be hung over and dead to the world. The next person wandered in five minutes later, wearing nothing but a shirt so large it had to be Luke’s and boxer shorts that were hopefully not Luke’s. She was built like a scarecrow, complete with a pinched face and shaggy black hair. 

She casually punched Marc on the arm as she opened the fridge, rooting around for orange juice. Marc hissed in pain. “Are they blueberry? I want blueberry.”

“Uh, Jess,” Luke said quickly, “I want to introduce you to somebody. Jess, that’s Marc Spector. Marc, that’s Jessica Jones.”

Jessica straightened, eyes wide. Marc scowled at her, feeling somewhat like a sideshow spectacle. She looked him up and down carefully before finally delivering her judgment on Marc’s presence and psyche. “The scowl’s new.”

The bacon sizzled and popped as Luke flipped them over. “I think he’s the strong, silent type.”

“I’m not saying much because I don’t know you people,” Marc said flatly. 

Jessica swiped a carton of orange juice out of the fridge - JESS was scrawled across the front in big Sharpie - and without any shame she looped an arm around Marc’s throat in a cruel mimicry of a hug. Marc wheezed, almost spilling pancake batter down his shirt. “We’re your only friends so you better learn fast.”

“Jake has friends?” Marc asked blankly. 

“I’m more surprised you’re the one who tricked a woman into marrying you,” Jessica said. “You’re the ugly one.”

“She’s out for a coffee run with Matt,” Luke added, leaving Marc to struggle out how there could be an ugly one. “She wanted his quality control.”

Marc started, turning to Luke. “Layla’s here? She knows you? How do you know Jake, Steven, and my wife? What did I miss? How long was I out ?”

“It’s been three weeks since your She-Hulk drama,” Jessica said, popping the top of the orange juice and chugging it. Like an animal. “It was annoying for everyone.”

Oh, god. Marc leaned against the counter, dizzy. Three weeks. Almost a month. Jake had the body for almost a month . Completely unchecked. What had he…

What had he done? Go to sleep in an apartment surrounded by random people? Introduce them to Layla and Steven - the two most precious things in his life? They didn’t even look like weird people. The woman was a hundred pounds soaking wet, she couldn’t be an assassin or anything. 

He must trust them. But Marc didn’t have to puzzle that one out. He trusted them too. 

Wait. Marc squinted at Jessica. He felt very positively about her. Weirdly positive. “Are we sleeping together?”

Jessica spat out her orange juice. Luke burned himself on bacon juice. Not that, then.

A head poked in through the door, sandy blonde and wide eyed. “Are Jake and Jessica sleeping together?”

Jessica threw a spatula at him. He dodged it easily and caught it out of midair. “Fuck you, Danny! Marc’s fallen to the bottom of the Family El-Faouly leaderboard. Yeah, I keep fucking track. I’m watching you!”

“Who’s at the top?” Marc asked Luke. 

“Depends on if Layla’s giving us money or not.” Luke paused a beat. “For a job. We do jobs for her. She doesn’t give us money for any other reason.”

“Are you guys a gang?”

“Back at the top of the leaderboard,” Jessica reported. 

“Are we making breakfast?” Danny stepped inside the kitchen, quickly surveying the assembly. “Oh, hey Marc. Danny Rand, your very good friend, nice to meet you. Can I help?”

“And he just knows immediately?” Jessica complained to Luke. “Not even a second?”

“He’s an expert in body language,” Luke said flatly. “Important part of being one of the greatest martial artists in the mystic or mortal planes.”

“He’s a what ?” Marc gave Danny another once over, who just gave him an enthusiastic thumbs up. Wait. Wait! “Fucking hell, I couldn’t even fool you ? Did everyone know?”

“Oh, hey Jake!”

“Jesus Christ!”

“It was really embarrassing,” Jessica said sympathetically. “Put Marc back on, we have to bond.”

“Cage, give me the bacon grease, I’m using it for a good cause.”

“I’m not doing that.”

Marc shook his head, like dislodging a fly. “Fool you in what? What did he do this time?”

Everybody looked at each other. 

Finally, Luke said, “Not much.”

“We just hung out,” Jessica said. 

“Jake beat up some weird dogs,” Danny volunteered. 

“ Animal abuse ?”

“Boston Dynamic dogs. Not actual dogs.”

The last two inhabitants of the apartment joined them just as they served the food. Danny had helpfully made some very strange but very tasty eggs and Jessica made herself minimally useful by making the toast and making more orange juice. They must have gotten out of bed when they smelled the food. It was a pretty yet severe Black woman and another pretty East Asian woman, who seemed to be wearing mismatched portions of the same pajama sets. Whoah, lesbians. 

The Black woman stopped and stared at the set-up. “Who’s dead? Did anybody die last night?”

The other woman did not look a gift horse in the mouth and sank down in one of the seats with a sigh. “I vote we make big breakfasts a tradition after a terrible mission. Katanas are not terribly useful against crystal dogs.”

“You did amazing, sweetie.”

“Why did we all decide independently that they were dogs?” Luke asked. “They didn’t even look like dogs.”

“Wait, wait, guys!” Danny clapped his hands, gathering everybody’s attention. “Super special announcement to make today. We have a…new team member! My honor to introduce -”

“Holy shit,” the severe woman said, squinting at him. “Is that Marc Spector? I was starting to think you were a myth that existed to inconvenience us.”

“Okay,” Marc said, “uh, fuck you too.”

“Ignore her, she’s just mad about what you do to our bottom line. She secretly accepts you.” Her girlfriend stood up and offered a hand, smiling professionally. Marc dumbly shook it. “Colleen Wing, PI. That’s my partner Misty Knight, also PI. I finally met Steven last night and he was a thousand times funner than Jake. Never thought I’d call Jake adorable, but here we are.”

Steven slid the pancakes onto the table, glaring at Colleen. “Okay, first of all - hello, good morning. Second of all, the word adorable is off the table. I’m a grown man.” 

“We call Danny adorable,” Misty said.

“I’m also a grown man,” Danny said. “You just don’t listen to me when I tell you to knock it off.”

“Danny and I are unionizing,” Steven announced. “First demand is to stop recording me. I’m snapping your phone in half next time I catch you doing it.” Marc aggressively slammed the forks on the table, making everybody jump. “Are you recording him? Don’t make him uncomfortable!” Jake swept his finger across popping bacon grease, licking it off his finger. “And Marc is insanely fucking annoying, so if you set him off about Steven he won’t shut up about it. Tedious as hell, and I’m the one who has to put up with it.”

“Is that going to be happening all the time?” Colleen said, freaked. “That is dizzying.”

“I don’t know,” Misty said thoughtfully. “Back to back like that…it’s almost tolerable?”

Everybody stood in silent shock over Misty referring to Jake as tolerable. 

The doorknob rattled, and Marc found himself leaping forwards and vauling over the couch. Layla spilled in through the door, holding a paper sack from the nearest bodega, tired and triumphant with somebody who Marc knew was Matt at her side. “Hullo, hullo. This man and coffee , he’s buying all my -”

She dropped the coffee, Matt only barely catching it in time, as Marc clasped her face and kissed her. She kissed him back, confused but accepting, and Marc felt the exact moment when she realized it was him. She threw her hands around him, embracing him tightly and desperately - as if they only had five minutes left before they had to separate forever, through one increasingly improbable way or another. 

“Wow,” somebody said, “they are just going -”

“The love’s alive.”

Marc separated from her, clasping her in another hug. He buried his face in her shoulder, and he found that he was almost shaking. As quietly as he could, so only that dick Matt could hear, he said over and over again, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for putting all of that on you. I didn’t want to ditch you again, I was just so tired -”

“Shush, I know.” She released him, and Marc reluctantly stepped back. She kissed him on the cheek again before ushering them both inside, shutting the door. “After breakfast, alright? All four of us will talk over breakfast.”

“Yeah,” Marc said, exhausted. “All…four of us.” 

“Jake’s not that bad, Marc.”

“Not that bad?” Jake asked, following her back into the kitchen. “That's all I get? Not that bad? I could be a great kisser, you don’t know that.”

“No,” Marc said, “I guess he’s just annoying.”

“Hah!” Steven punched the air. “I win least annoying! Put that on the leaderboard, Jessie.”

 Luke sat down at the table, glancing at Jessica as she joined him. “Jessie?”

“Steven has exclusive Steven rights,” Jessica said. “ Huge fan of that guy.”

Danny sat down next to Luke, joining Colleen and Misty as they began spreading out plates. “Kind of sad that your best friend isn’t at the top of his own leaderboard. For him. The leaderboard of him.”

“I can take or leave Jake.”

“It’s okay, everybody,” Matt said, sitting down next to Misty. “I don’t need to be introduced to Marc. That’s fine. Hearing all of your eternal squabbling from a block away’s more than enough for me.”

“I wish I could un-meet you,” Jake said.

“Gave me time to prepare, at least,” Layla said, sitting down next to Matt and accepting the plate he handed her. “I have no idea which one I was sleeping next to last night, Marc, but they slept like an absolute rock.”

“It was Marc,” Matt said. “Breathing pattern.”

“Do you have friends?” Layla asked curiously. 

Marc was the last to sit down. He looked over at everybody, crowded at the elbows and jockeying for food. There was one seat left open for him, between Layla and Jessica, who were already automatically annoying each other. 

Steven flapped his hands absently, a bit overwhelmed by the crush of people he had only really met last night. Without looking, Layla automatically dug into her pocket and deposited a fidget cube in his hand. Jake was completely unfamiliar with their concept and fiddled with it, discovering that it actually rocked a bit. How many of these did Layla have? Maybe he could go through her purse. 

Jake caught Luke’s eye. He raised an eyebrow at Jake, inclining his head a little - are you going to sit down? 

He let something big and light and warm fill his chest, solid and immovable deep in his heart. Over the top of everybody’s head, where nobody else would notice, he mouthed ‘thank you’. Luke shrugged - ‘don’t mention it’ - and went back to his meal. As if what he had done for Jake was nothing and could easily go without comment. As if it was just part and parcel of the package - of Jake, of Luke, of each other. Of this whole damn room.

Marc sat down at the table and ate their fill.