Work Text:
Marc-or more accurately, all three of them, the Three Moonskuteers(that was what Steven liked to call them) had been working with the Avengers for about a month. It was still hard for them to believe. After the whole big crocodile Ammit situation, he had been visited by Doctor Strange, yes thee Doctor Strange, requesting he be in consultation for the Avengers sometimes. It was a little frightening meeting him, especially when he's one of the strongest avengers and also shows up in your house after you’ve been at someone else's job all day.
He had obviously accepted, I mean he’d have to be even more insane than he already was to turn down working with the Avengers. So here he was, in Stark Tower(Stark Tower!) working next to Earth’s mightiest heroes. He’d gotten his own room and everything. He’d also already gotten to work on several group missions and solo missions. It was great.
Which is why he was stuck in his room, conflicted as to whether or not to leave. Marc had come clean about the DID thing pretty early on in his Avengers occupation but there was(to him)an even more compromising secret he hadn’t told anyone.
See, normally when things got too overwhelming or his emotions felt too unbearable, he fucked off into the Inner World and let Steven deal with it. But when h-they had died, that option wasn’t available. His brain did the best it could to protect him from those horrible feelings and reverted back to a younger version of itself. Regressed, you could say. And once he had connected back with Steven, that way of protecting himself didn’t stop. Now, sometimes, when everything was too much he went back to that babish mindset.
It took him a while but he had told Steven, having learned from the past not to keep things from him, since that whole thing had majorly backfired and Steven had found out about everything he was trying to hide anyway. It was a pretty awkward conversation where Marc had refused to meet Steven’s eyes for most of it but Steven had responded very positively, even offering to buy him some coloring books.
A month later, here he was, standing in his room, chewing on his fingernails. He had dropped into his younger mental state almost right after the mission they had had today. He’d managed to keep it together through debriefing and feigned tiredness before almost running off to hide in his room. He dragged his blankets off the bed and bundled up on the floor next to his nightstand and the now stripped bed.
It took him a while to stop feeling so distressed but when he did he popped his head out of his cocoon, weirdly still feeling small. Huh. This was weird. Firstly, Steven normally took over for him when he was feeling little. Secondly, up until now, when he stopped being upset, he reverted back to his normal self. But right now he still felt really small and he couldn’t feel Steven’s or Jake’s presence anymore. They were probably sleeping or something and Marc didn’t want to disturb them so he decided to deal with this new found problem himself.
He felt his stomach grumble loudly and remembered that he hadn’t eaten lunch. It was also way after dinner time as well. He turned around to look under the bed. Sometimes he would hide food down there, just in case. But unfortunately there was nothing except for a couple wrappers.
That meant he would have to go to the kitchen. Where there would probably be people. Which he couldn’t explain his childish state to.
Ow! He looked down at his finger. There was a little bit of blood creeping out from under his fingernail. Apparently he bit down too far and hurt himself. He frowned and stuck his finger in his mouth, nursing it.
His stomach growled again. He glared down at it and stood up, his blankets falling off him onto the ground. He went over to the door and opened it slowly. He peeked out, not seeing anyone else, and cautiously stepped out. Lucky for him, his room was close to the elevator. The elevator was right next to the living room and he peeked around the corner, not seeing anyone. He let out another sigh of relief, stepping out and walking into the elevator, not even noticing he still had his fingers in his mouth.
The elevator was also empty, thankfully. He entered it and a polite british voice rang out from somewhere above him. He looked up to find it but couldn’t even see any speakers.
“Hello Marc Spector. Where would you like to go?”
“Um, kitchen.” His response was muffled by his fingers, which he quickly took out of his mouth when he noticed they were still in there. He remembered what Steven had said about manners.
“Kitchen, please.” The elevator started moving up. A soothing elevator tune started playing from somewhere. He couldn’t be bothered to figure out where. The elevator finally stopped and the doors opened. He apprehensively peered out into the hallway, not seeing anyone.
There was no one in the living area or the kitchen either. Huh. He stood still for a moment before sticking his fingers back into his mouth and walking towards the kitchen. He rummaged through one of the huge fridges before not finding anything he wanted to eat. He furrowed his brows, becoming more frustrated. How was Tony a billionaire an’ didn’t have good food? He looked through a freezer next, seeing expensive meat and frozen peas and such before a box tucked away behind some ground beef caught his attention.
His eyes widened in energetic delight as he pulled out a box of unopened Fudge Bars and sunk down to the floor, legs in a W shape. He tore open the case and pulled one of the bars out, biting into chocolatey goodness and swallowing it before it had the chance to melt in his mouth. He ate at least half the box, the plastic wrapping dropped haphazardly on the floor surrounding him, before footsteps alerted him of someone's presence behind him. He spun his head around to reveal Bruce.
Bruce stared at the scene in front of him for a moment.
“Uhhh, Marc?” Bruce was befuddled at what he’d found when he came to do some stress cooking tonight. One of the Avengers newest admissions, Marc Spector(sometimes Steven Grant and even more rarely, Jake Lockley) W sitting in front of an open freezer, surrounded by plastic wrappings, with a box of popsicles in one hand and a popsicle in the other, mouth open about to bite into another one.
Marc sat stunned, unmoving as he stared up at one of the Avengers. He had, crazily enough, not expected anyone to come out here. He could feel his heart beating faster and faster and fell back to what was familiar. Denial.
“Is um. Is not Marc right now.” He stumbled out, trailing off at the end of his sentence.
“Steven then?” Marc shook his head .
“I hate to ask but is it Jake right now?” Marc shook his head with more force, laughing softly.
“That’s silly, Jake doesn’t like ice cream.” Bruce feigned offense, holding his hands up.
“Oh sorry for me, you all look so similar, like twins.” The, to Bruce, unmet alter on the ground laughed again.
“So what’s your name bub?” Bruce said, leaning down with his hands on knees.
“Um.” Marc paused, thinking of a name on the spot. He blurted out the first name he thought of.
“Adam.” Bruce smiled.
“Well hi Adam. What are you doing eating this much ice cream so late?” Bruce stood back up and put his hands on his hips.
“Got hungry! And Mr.Tony doesn’t have any other good food.” Marc pouted up at Bruce. He laughed, very amused with Adam’s judgment of Tony’s food choices
“Well, I’ll have to talk to him about that. How bout for now we clean up this mess?” He gestured at the ground, already leaning down to help Adam pick the plastic up. Marc frowned and stared at Bruce, making intense eye contact. He looked extremely worried
“Um, what I do with this one cause I um, I already open it?” He held the popsicle up to Bruce’s face.
“I mean it is already open. Be wasteful to waste it, ya know.” Marc paused for a moment, processing the response, and then stuck the popsicle into his mouth as he helped Bruce clean up the mess. Together, they picked up all the trash and threw it away. Bruce gazed at Adam when they were done: he was still eating his final popsicle. Marc noticed Bruce's stare after a moment and gave him a confused one back.
“Sorry, I’m not used to looking up at little kids.” Marc pouted.
“ ‘m not a little kid.” Bruce chuckled.
“Oh my bad.” He paused, not sure of how to continue.
“So…..Wanna watch something. I don’t know what kids like, Disney” He offered towards. Marc hesitated. He wasn’t sure what he liked.
“I never watched Dieney before.” It wasn’t technically a lie. He obviously knew the general plot to most of the movies but the three of them had never sat down to watch one of those kid’s movies.
“You’ve never watched Disney before, how have you never watched Disney, oh my gosh. We are watching Lion King right now” Bruce strode over to the clicker sitting on the coffee table and grabbed it, quickly turning the Tv on and the channel to Disney+. Marc followed him nervously.
“Not allowed out to watch stuff. Have to stay on the inside.” It was another half truth. When Marc was little, he never stayed fronting long enough to do an activity, let alone sit to watch an entire movie.
Bruce paused again, but quickly recovered, not wanting to make Adam feel bad.
“That’s okay you can start watching now. You’re gonna love Lion King.” Bruce finally found the movie he was looking for and flopped into one of the couches surrounding the tv. He patted the seat next to him without looking away from the beginning of the movie. Marc chewed on his cheek and hesitantly sat down next to him. He brought his knees up to his chest and after giving Bruce a long careful stare, he stuck his index and middle finger back in his mouth. It was fine to do that, he was Adam, not Marc right now.
He looked back to the movie. He sunk deeper into the couch. Being Adam was nice.
By the time the movie was over the two of them were asleep. The only light in the room was from the tv. The end credits lit them up like an intruder's flashlight on expensive jewelry. Marc was leaning against Bruce, still with his legs curled up but facing away from him now, and fingers dangling out of his mouth. Bruce had his arm wrapped around Marc and every one in a while he would shift in his sleep and pull Marc in closer. It was the more restful sleep Marc had gotten since after they had defeated Ammit and Harrow.