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There are, as far as Steven’s concerned, Steven Problems, Marc Problems, and Jake Problems.
Jake Problems are actually few and far between. He keeps to himself, mostly. Steven’s been quietly trying to find out what sort of tea he might like so he can leave a cuppa out for him every now and again. Steven Problems are mostly things like “buy groceries”. They’re rather essential problems, he thinks. As far as he knows, Jake has never set foot in a grocery store, and Marc tends to only buy cereal and instant coffee. It is entirely plausible, Steven thinks, that Marc has never heard of a vegetable.
Marc Problems can also be simpler. Marc’s job is to pay the rent, with money Steven generally tries not to think about the origins of. Marc has to remember to feed Gus and Gus 2.0. There’s some very easy, very solvable Marc Problems.
However, there’s a woman with long blond hair who’s been sitting at the cafe Steven’s at watching him for about fifteen minutes. She’s wearing a dark green vest over a black turtleneck and jeans, and every time he sneaks a peek at her out of the corner of his eye, she’s watching him.
She’s got weird vibes. Most people, excepting Layla, that Marc knows have weird vibes, so this seems very much like a Marc Problem.
“Marc?” Steven says quietly. “Er. Think we’ve got a bit of a situation, mate.”
What?
Steven glances out of the corner of his eye again. “She seems like she’s… here for you.”
Ah, shit.
“Is that a good ah, shit or is it an… unfriendlier ah, shit? ”
Kind of a… neutral ah, shit. She’s good people.
“Only, um, sometimes we have different definitions of good people.”
Her name’s Yelena. She’s not here to kill us.
“Okay, well-“
“A book on hieroglyphs,” Yelena says in a Russian accent, dropping into the seat across from him. “Very you.”
“Oh.” Steven clears his throat. “Hello, er, Yelena.”
“What’s with the accent?”
Steven frowns. “What’s with your accent? Some of us have got feelings, you know.”
Oh, Jesus, Marc mumbles. Steven ignores him.
“Little hostile, even for you.”
Steven wants to pass this over to Marc very much, except sometimes when they switch off they still do the eye rolly thing, and that might freak Yelena out, and if she’s an acquaintance of Marc’s, she’s definitely armed. “Ah, you know me. Just… hostile to the max.”
Oh, JESUS.
Yelena narrows her eyes. “Is this a cover?”
“Er. That’s a complicated question to answer.”
“It’s not a very good accent.”
Steven’s a little affronted. “It’s got its charms, I think.”
Yelena waves a hand. “Whatever. I need your help.” She hands him a file. “Human traffickers. They leave London tonight. It’s now or never.”
Steven takes the file and looks through it. “Nasty business,” he mumbles, looking through the photos and information. While Steven’s had to redraw some lines recently, he still holds pretty firm to the child murder one, and he’s definitely still got the human trafficking one, and this could be a column a, column b situation.
“Yes, well, that’s why we come in.”
Yeah, Marc muses. We can handle this.
“Okay.” Steven taps his fingers on the file. “Okay. Yeah, we’re in.”
Yelena furrows her brow. “Who’s we?”
“The royal we. The royal we is in.”
Her brow is still furrowed. “Are you alright?”
“Oh, you know. Peachy keen.”
“Can you do this? Because-“
“I’m fine, ” he stresses. “Don’t worry about me, alright, I can handle myself.” He picks up the folder. “When and where?”
“It’s in the file.”
“Right, then.” Steven stands, wiping a sweaty palm on his pants. “Best to be off to the missus.”
“I thought you and Layla were getting divorced.”
“Oh, you know, we all worked it out.”
“All?”
“Royal all.” He waves. “Laters, gators.”
Steven turns and walks away, feeling Yelena’s eyes on his back.
“I take it she’s not aware of the situation, then,” he mutters.
Not as such.
“Right. Good to know.”
“ Yelena? ” Layla demands, arms folded where she’s sitting on their bed. “Yelena got you shot! ”
“Yelena got us shot? ” Steven yelps.
Marc waves a hand dismissively. “It’s not that important. Lots of people got me shot. Layla got me shot.”
“She didn’t know you’d bounce back from it.”
“Terrific,” Steven mutters. “Terrific, real charmer, Marc, you hang out with such lovely people- present company excluded,” he adds after a moment. Layla gives a regal nod.
“She’s a good kid,” Marc says. “Knows a little something about being in reluctant service. We can trust her, okay?”
“I’m coming with you,” Layla announces.
“Will she be twitchy about that?” Steven asks.
“Who gives a shit. I’m coming with you.”
“We can handle it,” Marc says.
“Sure, with me.” Layla’s face is set. “Because I can take care of myself.”
“Course you can.” Steven holds up a hand. “You can protect yourself, we don’t need to be on call for that.”
Layla arches an eyebrow. “Marc?”
There’s a pause.
“I love you,” Marc finally says.
Layla throws her hands up. “I’m going to punch your face.”
“No, listen-“
“Please don’t,” Steven says. “Cause, y’know. It’s also my face.”
“It’s not that you can’t handle yourself, it’s just-“
“It’s just because you need to be protecting everyone at every moment all the time.”
“Yes.”
“Tough shit.” Layla gestures to the leg cuffs that they’d never really gotten around to getting rid of. “Only way you get me to stay home is by knocking me out and putting that on me, and even that’s only gonna delay me for a few minutes.”
“I think we should let her,” Steven says.
Layla arches an eyebrow. “Nobody’s letting me do anything.”
“I think we shouldn’t fight her on this,” Steven amends. “Sorry, love. We’ve taken on gods before, mate, I think we can handle a few rotten humans.”
Marc does the thing where his jaw gets all tight. It’s the one of his bodily mannerisms that Steven hates the most, because his teeth get all sore later on.
“Okay,” he relents. “I won’t fight you on this. I’ll tell Yelena you’re coming so she won’t shoot you.”
“Thanks,” Layla replies. “I like not getting shot.”
“Right.” Steven claps his hands together. “We need milk, so I thought I’d pop round the shops.”
“Yeah, that sounds good.”
Marc shrugs on a jacket. “The file’s on the table there, you can take a look through it, if you want to see what we’re up against.” He kisses her on the top of the head. “Love you.”
“Love you, love you, love you,” Steven adds, kissing the top of her head for each one. “Bye!”
“Bye, guys.” Layla heads for the folder. “Love you, too.”
It’s a Marc Problem, Steven had reasoned to him, so Marc should be the one fronting. This seems reasonable enough to him, so when they show up to meet Yelena on a rooftop overlooking the warehouse housing the human traffickers, Marc’s at the helm.
“Hey,” he says. Yelena’s in a black tactical suit of some kind, but still wearing the vest. She’s very particular about the vests.
“Hey,” she answers. “Ditched the cover, I see.”
“Yeah, something like that.” Marc surveys the warehouse. “Layla’s covering the back entrance.”
“Okay. Good to know.” She peers through her binoculars. “Happy to hear you two crazy kids worked it out.”
“Yeah.”
They lapse into a silence Marc tries not to feel awkward about. The thing is, he is fond of Yelena, after a fashion. She’s got a good heart, and she does her best. Steven’s been trying to encourage him to open up a little more with people, put himself out there better.
It’s okay, Steven encourages. Go on. Ask her a little question.
“How are things,” Marc says, stiffly. “With you?”
Really good, Steven tells him earnestly. Really natural.
Yelena stares at him like he grew another head. Marc immediately starts regretting the question.
No, no, it’s good! Just give her a moment to adjust.
“Okay,” Yelena says slowly. “So we’re doing this now?”
Marc shakes his head, frustrated and a little embarrassed. “Never mind.”
“No, no. Uh. I’m good, I guess? I… made a friend.”
“Oh. That’s… nice.” You’re doing great! “How did… you two meet?”
“Um. She was trying to stop me from killing Hawkeye, actually.”
Marc wracks his brain to try and remember if he saw anything in the news about Hawkeye dying. “You couldn’t kill Hawkeye?”
Yelena gives him an affronted look. “I couldn’t- of course I could kill Hawkeye! I chose not to. Oh, you couldn’t kill Hawkeye. Cyka.”
Marc throws up his hands. “Alright, alright! Fuck me!”
“I don’t really go in for all that dirty bird business, so you should find someone else to do that for you.” Yelena clears her throat. “And how are things… with you?”
“Um. Good. They’re… pretty good. I feel… cleaner than I have in a long time.”
This is great! A real conversation!
It doesn’t feel great. It feels like dragging nails on a chalkboard. But Marc can feel Steven’s excitement, and he supposes it’s not the worst thing in the world to actually talk to somebody other than one of them or Layla.
Is Steven the healthiest one out of the lot of them? Huh.
Oh, thank you very much for the tone of surprise there, mate, piss off.
“Since when do you hug and share?”
“I’m trying a new thing,” he snaps irritably. “Leave me alone.”
“Alright, alright, jeez.” Yelena squints at him. “Have you had any form of brain damage lately?”
Marc snorts. “Yeah, probably. Okay, are we doing this or what?”
“Ah, there’s the Marc I know.” Yelena stands. “Okay, let’s go.”
I’m thinking we should have a soundtrack, Steven muses. Or a theme song. Oh, we could get John Williams, couldn’t we? He does some great work, that John Williams .
“Focus,” Marc mumbles under his breath as they sneak into the warehouse.
“I’m focused,” Yelena says, a little cranky. “ You focus.”
“I-“ he huffs a sigh. “Never mind, just-“
SHIT! Steven yelps and Marc lunges for the flicker in the corner of his eye, and things devolve pretty rapidly from there.
“Scumbags!” Yelena shouts as she breaks some guy’s nose. “Always with the pistols!”
Very observational, Steven muses. She should take a crack at standup. Oh, left, left, mate-
Marc knocks out the guy on the left. “Thanks.”
Mm.
Yelena lets out a startled noise as Layla swoops in overhead, taking out a guy at the knees.
“You look good,” Yelena calls.
“Thanks!” Layla grabs someone by the hair and throws him across the room. “You, too!”
“I’m going to get people out safely!” Yelena whips out two batons. “Hold down the fort!” She dashes off.
“Hey, baby,” Marc says absently, covering her back.
“Hi, Lay,” Steven adds.
“Hi, guys. Lot more men than I thought there’d be.”
“Eh, y’know.” Marc kicks a guy in the chest. “Same shit, different day.”
“I got you orange mango juice at the store.”
“Aw, Steven’s so much better at going to the store than you.”
Marc punches someone in the gut. “Can we have this conversation later?”
Layla kicks a man in the face, which he supposes is an answer in and of itself.
A couple minutes later, Yelena rushes through, ushering a group of people through the warehouse. “Come on, it’s okay, it’s okay, follow me-“
“ BACK DOOR! ” Marc shouts.
“ MY OPTIONS ARE LIMITED! ” Yelena yells back, as well as something that Marc’s pretty sure is a Russian curse word.
“ MARC! ” Layla shouts and he whips his head around to see a whole new cadre of assholes running towards Yelena, who immediately starts trying to cover the cowering people behind her.
“Bollocks,” Steven whispers.
Marc charges towards them, bounding off shipping containers. Some guy shoots at him and he dodges but he misplaces a foot and he slams into a-
Es una forma inusualmente torpe de noquear a Marc, pero es lo que es.
“You good?” él pide.
“Yeah,” ella responde.
Layla se acerca corriendo. “Jake?”
“You three get into more fuckin’ bullshit,” él le dice secamente. “Than a bunch of cows in a field.”
Layla hace una mueca. “Fair enough. Thanks for the help.”
“No problem.” A Jake le gusta Layla. No tanto como Steven y Marc, pero ella es una mujer que no se toma una mierda. “See you around.”
“Hey, what’s your favorite kind of tea?”
Jake rueda los ojos. “You, too?”
“He just wants to make sure you’re taken care of, Jake.”
Jake lo considera.
“Chai,” dice por fin. “I like chai.”
Marc takes a breath like he’s coming up from underwater, his head aching a little.
“Aw, Jake,” Steven mumbles. “We gotta work on the switching there a little bit, buddy.”
“Hey.” Layla kneels in front of them. “Hey, are you okay?”
Marc nods. “Yeah, we’re good.” He looks up at Yelena, who’s watching with an evaluating eye. “Do you have a way to get them outta here?”
Yelena jerks her head to the group. “Come on.”
They hurry to follow her out of the warehouse as Layla helps Marc to his feet.
“Are you okay?” Steven asks.
“Yeah, I’m alright.” Her lips quirk. “Quite the digger you took into that shipping container.”
“Ah, well, strictly speaking that was Marc- “
Marc scowls. “Thanks.”
Layla kisses them gently. “Glad you’re alright.”
“You, too.”
She pulls back. “What are we telling Yelena?”
Marc sighs. “Let’s see what she says and I’ll spin some bullshit.”
They walk slowly out of the warehouse to see Yelena escorting people into a helicopter as two more take off. She gives the pilot a wave and she jogs up to them as the helicopter takes off.
“You had helicopter guys and you called me?” Marc asks.
“I needed them for the helicopters.” Yelena folds her arms. “So, who am I speaking to?”
“Uh.” Marc and Layla glance at each other. “Marc, Yelena.”
She shrugs. “I just wanted to be polite. One of my Widows has DID.”
“What?” Marc and Steven both say.
“No, I mean, we don’t have to talk about it, but I just wanted to let you know, you know, er-“ she gestures vaguely between them. “Safe space.”
Marc and Layla look at each other again.
Marc raises his right hand. “I’m Marc.”
Steven raises his left. “And I’m Steven. Hello.”
“Hi.” Yelena shuffles a little. “Sorry for what I said about your accent.”
“S’alright. Thank you for the apology, though.” Steven holds out a hand. “It’s nice to meet you. Marc knows so many cool women.”
Yelena smiles slightly, shaking it. “Thanks.”
Layla sticks her hands in her pockets. “I’m hungry. You wanna go get a beer, something to eat?”
“Sure, I could go for some dinner.” Yelena looks at Layla. “I like the-“ she whooshes. “With the wings you did.”
Layla smiles. “Thank you! I’ve been working on it.”
They start heading back towards the city. Layla slips her hand into Marc’s, and both he and Steven marvel, not for the first time, at how warm and comforting it is. They walk in silence next to Layla and Yelena as they idly chat about guns, allowing themselves to feel this moment. The moon in the sky, the sturdiness beneath their feet, the warmth of their wife next to them, the presence of perhaps a friend and not just an acquaintance.
Moments like this are rare, Marc thinks. It won’t last.
But they’re not as rare as they used to be. And it’s lasting now.
“Where are we going, anyway?” Yelena asks.
“I know a place that does a pretty good falafel,” Steven says.
“Okay. Can I tell you about my dog?”
“Sure.” Steven brightens. “Can I tell you about our fish?”
Yelena’s eyes widen. “You have fish? Oh man, that’s so cool. I’d like fish but I think Fanny would eat them.”
“Oh, you. You didn’t name your dog Fanny, did you?”
“Yeah, sure. Why not?”
Marc laughs before Steven starts spluttering. Layla squeezes his hand.
The moment lasts.