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It’s amazing what people will tell their cab drivers, using them like a sounding board. In a socialite’s mind, everything ends when the ride does, dissipates into the ether. A cab driver lives in a different world. A cab driver will never encounter their social circle, the real people. They wouldn’t even know where to go, surely, and if they did? They’d never get past the front door.
Good thing Steven Grant would.
And that’s what brings Moon Knight to a rooftop by the East River, peering over the edge to catch all the comings and goings of a supposedly derelict warehouse. There’s a lot of abandoned ones like it in the area. Brick-lined shells of a once booming industry—or at least, they were supposed to be shells. But Steven had done good with Jake’s information, schlepped over to some hoity-toity party and, after some schmoozing, come out with this address.
So here he was, casing the place out. Poking his nose around to see how exactly these tailored suits were endangering travelers of the night.
All of the warehouse’s points of entry are illuminated by the night’s full moon, its shimmer reflecting off the nearby waters (he’d died in those very waters, once).
Not that visibility had been a problem this week. The past few nights had been a muddy red, the city’s sky tinged with light pollution. Typical with low clouds. Skyglow.
Of course, that also meant that everyone he’d confronted in his normal course of business these past few days had seen him coming sooner than expected. But that didn’t serve as a warning so much as a preview.
As he watches two besuited men with almost competitively slicked-back hair amble through the alley’s side-entrance, he feels the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.
Marc Spector.
He makes no effort to turn his head. “Khonshu.”
You are needed, my son.
“Yeah. Here.”
Cease your petulance. It is time at last we resumed our work. Our mission.
He peeks behind his shoulder to look up at the husk of a god— a hollow, beaked skull wearing his finest wesekh and robe tonight instead of a suit. “Oh, you mean your mission to use me in your games, damned the consequences? Or do you mean defending the travelers of the night, the thing I’m actually doing?”
Khonshu sighs, ever weary. Where is your faith, my son?
“Don’t you dare,” he grits out, turning back to watch the warehouse.
So, you have resorted to escapades? You will need me. Do you recall how I plucked you out of this river? Like a drowned whelp, soaked to the bone.
His eyes narrow.
I need my avatar for what is to come.
“I’m not interested in what you want to come.”
Who else is to—
“—Do your bidding?!” He slams his hands against the stone ledge and whips his body around to point at Khonshu. “I’ll tell you: no one. I’m the only sorry soul you’ve nabbed in this century. I’ve kept your statute locked away in Grant Mansion for all these years. I wasn’t even sure why, at first, but it’s a damn comfort knowing it meant no other unlucky bastard would fall dead at your feet.”
You understand, then. You are my champion.
“We told you. We’ve outgrown you. We don’t need you.”
He clenches his fists at his sides.
“I’m not your tool.”
Silence falls between them for a few moments, eyes and empty sockets locked in a gaze.
I will find another.
His fingers uncurl and he relaxes his shoulders. “Not in this lifetime,” he says evenly.
Khonshu dissolves into the night, clearly displeased. Good. All that’s left to stare at where Khonshu once stood is an unobstructed view of the river, the moonlight still glimmering with the current.
Marc’s about to relish the silence when a BOOM pierces through it.
He watches as an explosion engulfs a small cluster of abandoned factories and buildings by the pier, several blocks away but still within the industrial district. Orange now peppers the river, a reflection of the flames embroiling the center of detonation, where floors are collapsing inward. A smokestack tips over, shedding bricks into the fire below.
He swivels to face the warehouse’s entryway as a few men spill out, clearly curious as to the source of the noise.
“Another night then.”
He swivels back, gets a running start across the roof, and jumps.
A car alarm is blaring. Marc adjusts his cape as he lands, having glided down to the closest untouched roof by the explosion's center. He keeps his distance from the roaring flames, not yet sure of the type of explosion or stability of the main structure.
But he can still hear the crackling, feel the heat bearing down on his face.
He wonders, if he had been in the explosion, if he died right here, would Khonshu revive him? No matter how much he insists he wants nothing to do with him, how many times he turns away, will Khonshu still bring him back, still claim him as his champion?
Just another tactic of his, probably. Piling on a debt he knows Marc could never repay.
For the longest time, he wasn’t even sure if Khonshu was real. He hadn’t seen him; hadn’t heard him. He just knew that one night he found himself feeling achingly alone, dragging himself through the desert, sand sticking to his bloodied wounds, each grain like salt. It had gotten so cold, but whether that was from the desert night or not, he was unsure. Unsure of anything, except that he was alone.
Then, from one moment to the next, he woke up in a tomb, at the feet of Khonshu’s statue somehow knowing he had to take up his robe, his mission. He couldn’t remember the time between.
That was the first time.
His eyes scan the area, and he sees movement some yards out, close to the flames, a few floors up. Well, what’s left of the floors—it’s just a crumbling foundation ringing around the gaping hole leading way to flames on one end and scattered debris on the other. Knowing whatever’s still standing won’t be for long, he heads toward the movement.
After Khonshu, he was never dead long. Well, he was for a while, once.
It was Moon Knight who handled being dead that time. He thought he was digging through dirt, then he wasn’t, and he was traversing through a cemetery, and then he wasn’t, and—it was like a long, winding dream. Dark. Cold.
Khonshu had appeared, looming over him once again. The only light in the darkness, yet not at all inviting, saying it was time to come back, time to do his battle. But he didn’t feel alone then, not like the last time; Spector lying in a pool of his own blood.
No, Lockley, Spector, Grant—they were all there to guide him through the dark. Together.
No, he wasn’t alone. Not anymore.
It’s so, so dark. And he is all alone.
He doesn’t need to see anything to know as much; he can feel it.
A shiver runs through him as he props himself up with his elbows, digging deep.
We meet again.
Marc treads calculatedly along the edge of what’s left of the fourth or fifth floor of the main factory, can hear the deterioration of his surroundings in real-time.
He’s close enough now to see someone clinging to rubble, teetering over the edge, fingers scrambling for purchase.
Ah, there’s the flashy outfit. An Avenger? From the new younger cohort, maybe. Honestly, he hasn’t been keeping track.
No—he gets a better look once he’s nearly within reaching distance, thinks this guy was on the West Coast Avengers. Santos, was it?
The kid’s slipping, and his left hand loses its grip on the jutting floor— but the right’s got a firm grasp on an exposed pipe.
Marc swoops down, leans over Santos.
“Grab hold.”
Santos throws up his left hand, connects with Marc’s, and holds on for dear life as Marc helps hoist him up. Both of them grunt as he gets leverage over the edge, kicks his leg over. The kid’s whole body looks like it’s…blinking. An occasional stutter where he’s solid, then all light and energy. Powers out of check, then.
“M…Miguel, was it? We should probably get out of here.”
“What? Yeah. No, I—” They both turn as they hear the fire pop, see the embers jump as another large piece of flooring gives in and feeds the flames.
“Like I said, we’d better get going.”
Miguel furrows his brows, shakes his head. “I can’t just do that, the team split up and I stayed here to—”
“So regroup with them. Time’s not exactly on our side.”
“You don’t get it, it’s—” Miguel looks down at the fire, the ruins of the ground floor. Marc follows his line of vision.
“…You weren’t here alone, were you?”
“It’s Hawkeye, I think-I think he’s—”
“Miguel. Backtrack,” Marc suggests, wondering just what else this night might bring.
Miguel palms his forehead, pushes errant strands of hair up. “A.I.M. had planted some bombs, unconventional. You know how they are with their tech. We'd thought they were just setting the place up for future tests or experiments, but there were a ton of guys guarding the place, something already in play. We got some intel, Hawkeye looked around and found a bunch of the bombs already triangulated.”
Miguel takes a deep breath. “The rest of the team branched out to other sites around the city that were supposed to have more A.I.M. goons. Hawkeye hung back to try and figure out these ones, that way if anything else was set up we could stop them from going off.
“There was plenty of time—they weren’t set up to detonate yet. I stayed on the roof to keep a lookout, see if any of the others flew back with more info. But he called out, said there were a few guys still hanging around downstairs, and I flew down and—” He exhales.
“Powers. Powers set them off. If you get between them, like I—I…” Miguel looks down at his feet. “Well. And then the thing tries to neutralize them so once you’re there, you can’t stop it. I was flashing in and out of electric form when the blast pushed me back.”
This might be a long night.
“You had better tell the others all this," Marc finally responds.
Miguel's attention flickers between the debris and Marc. “No, I can’t just leave him here. I-I can’t go back to Cap without his—I can’t go back empty-handed. ”
Oh.
And he swears he sees it. Briefly. A shadow crossing the moon.
Oh no.
“Go join up with the others,” Marc reiterates, forcefully this time, already moving. “I’ll look for him.”
“You look…different,” Clint gestures at the emanating glow before him.
Last he could recall, Khonshu’s head was not a bird’s skull. It didn’t have a face, sure, but it still had some semblance of being human. Now? Not so much.
And here he stood, towering over Clint, the only thing punctuating the pitch blackness.
The years have not been kind.
Clint crosses his arms. “Speak for yourself. I still look peachy.”
Khonshu says nothing, just stands there gripping his staff like his old statue.
“Okay, fine, it’s been kinda rough going otherwise.”
For me, it was centuries. Another lifetime. For you, a decade perhaps—
“Actually—”
—So you remember when our paths last crossed, all those millennia ago.
“I don’t know, man. I kinda time-travel often,” Clint shrugs. “It’s like a hobby at this point—of course I fucking remember. How could I forget dy—
“Oh.”
Indeed.
“Got it.”
Santos scales down the building easily enough.
Once he gets a short distance away from the factory ruins, he’s able to fully enter into his electric form and Marc watches him shoot off like a beam of light, disappearing into the horizon.
Miguel will take care of his business just fine, pressing at is, but Marc’s got some that’s especially his to deal with.
It would be a West Coast Avenger. Who else to remind him of that strange fragment of his life, when Khonshu finally revealed himself outright in a vision?
When Hawkeye, of all people, would see Khonshu before him and live to tell the tale.
Only he didn’t live. He died and was resurrected. A deal with Khonshu…but not marked like Marc.
Or so he thought.
A debt that could never be paid…
He jumps down from the edge of this floor to the one below, hears it groan. Not structurally sound, but not ready to collapse just yet. Good. He does it again, feels the temperature increasing the lower he gets, sees the damage worsen. The next floor is just jagged wood, bent rebar, fractured bricks everywhere.
He hopes more than anything that Clint Barton isn’t dead. Because he might not be for long.
“But I can’t be dead. I was just trying to find out how A.I.M.’s bullshit worked, these weird giant detonators, was figuring out the perfect ricochet shot when they made this glowing circle and—
“Huh. Now that I’ve said it out loud, that actually sounds like an instruction manual for dying.”
Yes.
Clint scoffs. “Way to break it to a guy.”
Fortunately for you, Clint Barton, the seed of an idea was planted.
“Oh, wanna write the obituary? I’m thinkin’ something like, ‘Yeah, he died’ would be your style.”
Khonshu brushes Clint off. I have a better idea for one such as yourself.
“I got an idea: we call it even and you send me back.”
Clint thinks Khonshu…chuckles?
You may have earned my favor before, and fulfilled your part of the bargain handsomely, but that debt has been paid.
Clint waves a hand, gesturing to get on with it already. “So, what, I open a tab?”
I am afraid it’s not that simple.
“Why the hell not? I know how the detonators work now. I saw it. I can stop them, Death Star style, but keep ‘em contained.” Clint slaps a hand on his chest, frustration growing. “I need to help my team. I have to tell them!”
Don't fret. I can help your efforts.
“Then help already!”
“Hawkeye! Barton! Would it kill you to help me out here?”
Marc is trudging through the ground floor—well, not the floor so much as all the wreckage on top of it, walking around all the sloping story-tall heaps. Also, he’s really only able to cover the half not currently engulfed in flames, which were persistent but not spreading, at least.
This was getting nowhere.
“If you can hear me, say something! Lead me to—” Something draws Marc’s focus, highlighted by a beam of moonlight. Sticking out from under some hefty pieces of plywood is a hand, palm up.
Marc makes a beeline for it, plants his feet and lifts the plywood with some effort.
That trademarked beekeeper suit. It’s a member of A.I.M., caught up in his own test.
Dead.
Marc starts hurriedly lifting up similarly sized pieces of debris in the immediate vicinity of the A.I.M. scientist to uncover what lies beneath. A pipe. A pierced barrel. A yellow hazmat helmet.
“Hawkeye! Can you hear me?”
Marc shifts to throwing every other piece of debris he can grab one-handed over his shoulder, seeing if anything reveals itself. He isn’t even looking for specific signs among the piles anymore. The moon brings nothing useful to light anyways.
“Tell me where you are!”
“At least tell them, like last time!”
I cannot. I no longer have a messenger.
“Argh!” Clint runs a hand down his face. “You ever heard of email?”
Khonshu tilts his head up ever so slightly. Clint thinks it makes his beak look snooty.
You know as well as I that this is no joking matter.
Clint throws his hands up. “Fine. Fine! Whaddaya want from me? What’s my little chore this time?”
It’s no small chore. It is a mission.
“Mission, chore, sure, whatever. Just send me back before my team gets hurt.”
Khonshu looks down again, stares through Clint, closer this time. Clint thinks he would feel Khonshu's breath, if the asshole had any.
You misunderstand. It’s my mission.
Clint squints, looks into Khonshu’s sockets on the off chance they have further details inscribed within.
“…What?”
Khonshu’s glow seems to grow stronger. Clint only felt cold before, but now swears he feels gusts of wind, almost knocking him down.
Clint Barton; Will you be my hands, my eyes, my vengeance? Will you be my knight? My champion?
Clint blinks.
“What the fuck is your problem?”
Khonshu leans back, tilting his head.
Do you want death, or do you want life?
“Oh, gee, mister, I don’t know,” Clint ekes out in a sarcastic falsetto. He drops the voice, belts, “I’m already dead! You can just put me back as breakable and flammable as ever without your whole gimmick, thanks. I’ll be fine.”
And where did we last leave your purely human form? Ah, yes, I believe it was in the throes of an explosion.
Clint’s starting to think this guy is a real sarcastic bastard.
“So? And what’s all this ‘knight’ business? Don’t ya already got one a’ those? What happened to your guy?”
My son and I have…seen things differently. A mere temporary shift in paths.
“Then go to a fucking counselor or somethin'! Why are you dragging me into your shit?” Clint lets out a short, irritable exhale through his nostrils. “Hey, I know a guy; he’ll sell you out to a bunch of mercs first session in. I’m sure you’d love that.”
Do not test me—stalling will get you nowhere.
“I can see where things went wrong,” Clint mutters under his breath.
You act awfully brazen despite knowing I cannot restore your life unless you accept my terms.
“Uh-uh!” Clint tuts, wagging his finger. “I already know you can do it. Or did you forget our last meet an’ greet?”
That was a more tumultuous time. I will make no such bargain today. You're in no position to negotiate.
“Look, I don’t need your moon powers, controlling the tides or cheese or whatever it is you do. I never did.” Clint clenches and unclenches his fists, stretches his fingers. “I can take care of this myself. I just—I just need to get back to my friends.”
Khonshu lets the moment linger, as if studying him.
Are they important to you?
“What kind of a stupid question is that?”
You would do anything to help them, wouldn’t you?
“Of course,” Clint answers instinctively.
Pay any price?
There’s a sinking feeling overtaking Clint’s gut.
If he wasn’t already dead, he’d be on the verge.
Marc just has to get to him first, stop the worst from happening, then take him to a hospital before it’s too late. Before Khonshu—
This wasn’t supposed to happen to anyone else.
The absence of a choice.
Though, in a way, Marc had an inkling of what would be in store from his father.
You wouldn’t think that a peace-loving rabbi would’ve given him insight on the ins and outs of this violent life he’d undertaken. It’s not exactly the kind you’d try to get pointers for from a gentle pacifist.
But if there’s one thing a rabbi can be sure to do, it’s teach.
And Marc certainly learned.
Usually when a god asks something of you, your life is about to get much more…difficult.
Except Khonshu didn’t want him to teach, to impart knowledge—he wanted him to take vengeance. But maybe imparting his brand of justice was a lesson in its own. It definitely sent a message.
Marc tosses aside the remnants of a crate and hears a rustling. Unfortunately, it’s not the human kind. He looks up, sees more debris tumble from the exposed levels above.
He’s almost out of time.
He grabs the edge of his cape, adjusts it with a flourish so it doesn’t get caught on the metal bars sticking out of the pile he’d just inspected.
He walks.
Tigra had broached the topic of Khonshu with Hawkeye, shortly after their encounter and Marc’s first real mission on the West Coast Avengers. It had been a solo mission—at least, Marc had made it one. It was supposed to be a team affair, and Barton was pissed.
‘This isn’t the God Squad!’ he’d said, according to Greer.
There was the occasional update with her. Less so from Bobbi—their catch-ups were of the rarer variety due to…mitigating circumstances. But when you branch out from a team into a splinter group, you tend to get the odd run-down from your former splinter teammates here and there, directly or indirectly.
So, gods apparently didn’t mean much to Clint Barton.
But vengeance was a different story. Yet when he last heard from Morse, certain philosophies of Barton’s might just have changed—no, eroded. And that evidently scared him, worried them both, if the way Bobbi was acting was anything to go off of.
Marc takes one last look around the area, takes a step to the side to dodge a two-by-four falling from above.
He’s out of time.
He grips one of his truncheons, uses the grappling line to go up a few stories. If the building’s collapsing, he’ll keep an eye on the debris below until as late as he can. Just in case.
But he knows it’s too late—what comes next may be inevitable.
So, the man thought nothing of gods, grew up in a circus (which Marc learned from enduring many a regurgitated anecdote out west), and shied away from the darker aspects of vengeance.
Would he understand the weight of it?
“My dad was a butcher.”
The two have been in a stand-off of silence for agonizing seconds. Khonshu stares, unmoving.
Clint takes a breath, even though he no longer needs to.
“Sure, I was still pretty young when mom and him died. But when your family actually owns the butcher shop, and all you’re any good for is an extra pair of hands, you spend a lot of time around the place.
“Not like the old man ever actually took the time to show me anything, like really show me. My brother Barney did some. But being stuck there for hours, nothing to stare at when sweeping but posters on the wall, needing something to pass the time when you’re hiding in the back and only coming up with the diagrams and manuals layin’ around—you sorta spend a lotta time learnin’ the tools of the trade.
“So much time that I know how to make every cut—where to slice into meat, which cut’s the best, what’s the hardest to hack, and just how to go about doing it. And how to get a little blood outta your clothes. But see, that’s the only use I ever got outta any of that.”
Khonshu glowers.
“I’m not my father.”
Khonshu adjusts the grip on his staff.
I do not need a butcher. I need a champion.
“For you, is there a difference?”
Again, Khonshu says nothing.
The man had principles—and they were ridiculous.
It’s starting to rain. Right, skyglow.
Of all the people, it just had to be Hawkeye that died in Khonshu’s temple. Hawkeye, Avenger, one-time hater of vengeance. Hawkeye that died again tonight when Khonshu was looking to sink his claws in.
The rain’s picking up quickly, causing the flames to die down.
So why would Khonshu want Hawkeye? Marc admits, Barton’s clearly a skilled fighter. He's seen as much himself. But surely Khonshu could see that Barton was…different. Not exactly bloodthirsty, from what Marc could remember.
He tried to stick to principles. His ridiculous, absurd principles. He seemed to finally amend them upon reconsideration, but still tried to have something.
If the two were mapped out, he and Marc would have completely different starting points.
The rain droplets are heavy now, sounding off a loud thrum as they hit the pavement below. The fire's nearly extinguished.
Khonshu wasn’t supposed to drag down someone like that. Marc crawled through the desert knowing he was a violent man. Accepting that. Already one.
Hawkeye is…
Khonshu’s mission is meant for someone else. Someone like Marc.
Someone not like him.
“I’ve seen some a' the things your guy’s done. Or maybe, what you got him to do. I’m not like that.”
Khonshu leans forward, stops with his beak a foot from Clint’s face.
We shall see.
Something zips past his ear, with only the faintest whoosh, almost drowned out by the sound of downpour, any indication it was ever there—
An arrow.
Marc’s eyes follow its path, watch a grappling hook at the end of the shaft secure itself onto a still-standing structural column. A line is attached, goes slack, then taut. A small pulley kicks into gear and Marc can hear the line running, see it moving.
He looks down from his spot by a brick pillar, view obstructed by the jutting edges of the floor.
The line pulls and pulls. Finally, at the edge, a tangle of blonde hair matted with dust, ash, and bits of debris emerges. A few inches more of line reveal focused blue eyes.
“Oh, thank—”
The line keeps pulling and Marc sees the tattered, ashen white sheet tied around Clint’s neck.
A glow follows him, and eyes stare into empty sockets.