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It’s a long way to the moon.
“238,900 miles,” he tells Layla once, then has to google how far that was in kilometers because the customary system is shit but he doesn’t remember that figure now as he sinks to the floor with his back to the wall and away from the mirror he just broke.
And when Marc reaches out, he can almost feel his fingers sting and burn with starfire, the darkness of the night sky ripples around his hand as he dips it into the puddle and grabs a handful of the water, bringing it to his lips to satiate some of the thirst that’d he’d been slowly dying of. That and the three bullet wounds in his side.
When he lifts his hand, it comes away dry, filled with sand, his mouth feeling like cotton, the sun beating down on him overhead and the desert still stretching for miles with nothing in sight but more dunes. A mirage, Marc thinks.
Then pushes himself to his feet and keeps walking.
His dreams aren’t usually so vivid though. He used to dream of being an astronaut when he was younger. Of going to space, to the moon, to Mars, and beyond. Of being anywhere but where he was, is, trapped in his closet because his mom decided to come home early and dad won’t be back for another few hours so the best thing he could do for himself and Steven and whoever else might be rattling inside his 10-year-old brain would be to hide. Hide himself and his breathing and his mind away in a dark closet and dream about space wolves and moon bases and grand space operas.
Dreaming of the Egyptian moon god glaring over his shoulder at the piece of shit scum whose knees he’d just bashed in was a bit over the top.
‘You know what to do, Marc,’ Khonshu hums. ‘Kill him.’
And Marc, being who he is, obeys.
A killer. He was born in blood — a c-section is a rather bloody procedure — raised and molded by it. There was a cave and a boot camp and a war and a mercenary group and a dig site and a temple and alleyways alleyways alleyways painted in red. There are his hands, draped in white, covered in blood.
‘I know you enjoy the work I have for you.’
“Bugger off,” Steven snaps.
Or Marc wishes he had. In reality, Steven is mute and seething and Marc is too busy fucking everything in his life up to dwell on the disappointment, on the soul-crushing realization that even Steven hates him, probably not as much as he hates himself but hey, a guy could dream.
Maybe he enjoys it. Jake sure pretends he does. But pretend and that’s all because Marc had taken a peek when Jake thought he wasn’t looking. An empty table, an empty apartment, an empty life where Jake would stumble home every night, stare at himself in the mirror, silently hate Marc and by extension, himself, then dip back to let the resentment fester. The resentment for what Marc forced him to do, become because Jake isn’t a killer as much as Steven isn’t, as much as Marc is.
Jake likes sports and smoking and gum and going to that retro diner and talking to Crawley and pet sitting and driving and cars. Jake likes helping old ladies cross the road and striking up conversations with strangers and smiling and laughing and living. Jake’s life was not meant to be lived in flashes or snippets or footnotes at the end of others. Jake isn’t a cameo and not a last resort. Jake is a person and he often, too frequently, forgets that. Marc doesn’t.
Jake hates him for that. Marc thinks, Marc hopes, Marc prays.
Because all the bad is wrapped up in one human-shaped package named Marc Spector, sitting on the floor of his bathroom in the apartment he bought with the wife he tried to divorce, rocking back and forth and wondering if he could even die.
It’s a long way to the moon, 238900 miles to be exact.
When he was younger, he’d draw up blueprints for rocket ships. Paths to the moon, the best time to fly, the best angle, the best speed, and trajectory.
“My little rocket scientist,” his mom says sweetly, patting and kissing his cheek as she looked them over.
Before Marc’s first murder. After, those plans became less fantastical. They became a necessity. 238900 miles was no longer enough, it had to be further. 132.63 million miles to Mars. Another hundred million to Jupiter, and beyond and beyond. 15 miles to the nearest recruitment center, 103 miles to boot camp, and an ocean between Chicago and the Middle East, death between him and his mother, a wall no longer between him and Steven, secrets between him and Layla.
There’s a knock on the door.
(“Marc? What's wrong?”)
That’s a loaded question. What’s wrong is that the barrier of death is not enough to keep Marc from thinking of his mother, of the nights she’d wake him and RoRo up and drag them both outside to watch meteor showers, of how she’d lift them both to help light the Menorah, how she corrected their Hebrew and Spanish and tucked Marc into bed after making sure his brother was asleep.
“You know what you have to do,” she says softly, stroking his hair lovingly.
“Protect him,” Marc recites, feels in his soul.
She leans over and kisses his forehead. “Mi caballero.”
But those aren’t his memories. Not anymore. They belong to Steven now, the good ones, so he could live in blissful ignorance until Marc had to drag him from that room to make sure he didn’t see the worst of it. He’s not supposed to see it, he’s not supposed to know of the belt and being trapped in the closet and— and—
(‘Marc, mate, I need you to listen to me, yea? I need you to breathe.’)
“Can you even die?” Layla asks him, something strange flitting over her face.
“I don’t think he’d let me.”
Cold dread wraps itself around his heart at the realization. That for as long as Khonshu exists, so would Marc, so would Moon Knight. That he can’t die because Khonshu won’t allow it. That the only escape he can think of would be letting Steven live the life he deserves and sinking to the back so…
‘Everything you touch turns to ruin!’
Marc remembers breaking the Menorah once, he remembers falling down the stairs while his mother watched from the top. He remembers dropping his kippah, he remembers apologizing to it with burns on his palms. He remembers tugging his brother’s hand along, leading him to the cave, he remembers waking up in a hospital room, waiting for her to walk in. Only his father sat by his side.
(‘Q’hubo, Marc. Marc Spector… hermano. You need to focus. You need to listen. You need to—)
It’s a long way to the moon.
“How long?”
Marc gasps and struggles and scrambles back until he’s trying to merge with the wall. It’s too bright, it’s too loud, he can hear the electricity humming in the walls and feel his skin crawling. He shuts his eyes, slams his palms over his ears. He doesn’t stop rocking.
He stays there for, some time. He isn’t sure how long, too long maybe. But eventually, the red behind his eyelids darkens and the air isn’t like razors on his arms. Eventually, he gets the courage to open his eyes. And he’s met with the sun.
“Hey,” she whispers, a little bit away from him on the floor, a strained smile on her face.
He doesn’t think he’s capable of speech right now. He doesn’t think he’s capable of much besides staring at her because he was just in the desert, just drinking from a paradise that doesn’t exist, and he doesn’t want to blink and she’s gone. Another mirage.
But she seems to know like she can read minds, and she scoots a bit closer but doesn’t touch him. Or maybe it’s not mind reading but one of those things he doesn’t get yet the rest of the world seems to.
“Hey,” she repeats, quieter and softer. She holds out one hand, the other has bandages and tweezers in it. “You hurt yourself.”
He takes stock of himself, then his surroundings, covered in glittering glass fragments littered across the countertop and floor. His knuckles are coated in blood, nothing new, but it’s his this time.
“Can I touch you?” Layla asks.
Can she? Marc doesn’t want to hurt her, ruin her more than he already has and will—
‘Marc,’ it’s Steven, calm and gentle, ‘you won’t. She’s fine, we’re fine, everything’s alright. You’re safe.’
He stares at her palm, outstretched.
‘You’ll be alright,’ Jake murmurs. ‘Let her help.’
Marc closes his eyes. Opens them. Nods.
“Ok,” she says, then ghosts her fingers on his, testing the waters first before she takes his hand in hers and pulls it closer to her, “ok.”
Marc looks up at the ceiling, the popcorn pattern that looks like jagged, white cliffs suspended from above. Or tiny icicles. He feels the floor under him, hard and cold, and focuses on that sensation when the alcohol stings his wounds. He bites back a hiss of pain and maybe bites too hard.
‘Cálmate, estás a salvo, te lo prometo.’
Marc doesn’t understand, not entirely, but Jake’s voice is even, no dips or wavers. He likes listening to him talk. He lets his lip go.
“Finished,” Layla puts his hand back in his lap and he misses her touch, “done. Feeling better?”
Marginally. A bit. Yes. And he wants to thank her but—
He’s pathetic. He can’t even find the words to thank his fucking wife after he— he doesn’t even remember. He doesn’t remember anything after or before the dream, the nightmare, the breakdown, the sound of the rain outside pattering against the window pane overlapping with the rushing water of the faucet, and Layla wincing after cutting herself and blood on the cutting board— in the cave— on her, his, their hands—
‘Marc!’ He snaps back to reality, meeting Layla’s searching, worried gaze and listening to Steven. ‘Don’t go there again, yea? Layla asked you a question, remember?’
He wracks his brain. She did, and somehow over the sand dunes and through the thick ancient walls of the temple and past the sound of water building in a cave and over the shouts of people trapped in minds and mirrors, he hears her.
“238900 miles,” he whispers.
Layla’s expression eases into a grin. “And in kilometers?”
Marc drags his tongue over his teeth and inhales deeply. “384472.”