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Steven and Jake have always been bad getting the laundry folded. Jake ends up stuffing any under layers in the drawers and hanging everything else up, so things like sweaters get all misshapen. Steven tends to just leave them in the laundry basket until he wears them. They have two baskets that are supposed to be for separating darks and lights, but it always ends up that one is for dirty clothes and the other is for clean clothes that just haven’t been folded and put away ‘yet.’ Marc isn’t sure which strategy he hates more.
He kept his storage unit clean and organized for a reason. A place for everything and everything in its place. It’s what he learned in the military and the only way he could ever feel in control of his space, even years after he left. It’s why he didn’t feel at home in Steven’s apartment until they reorganized and he got his own little Spartan corner where all his belongings were kept neatly in their containers. He didn’t even need to label anything. He knew where every object was without having to look.
But their clothing was all kept together because how many closets and dressers can one apartment have? And they all had to share clothes anyway, even if there were some items that more belonged to one or another.
So, Marc resigned himself to being the only one who folded the laundry that needed to be folded. Steven usually did the laundry, and Jake would hang up all the items that actually went in the closet, so maybe it wasn’t so bad that Marc had to be the one to fold what was left, even if it was the most monotonous job.
This week, however, Marc just needed to… not be out for a while, so he missed laundry day. He had been making a lot of progress, they all had, but sometimes being more honest with himself meant being more vulnerable. And sometimes being more vulnerable meant that things that didn’t affect him so much in the past seemed bigger now, at least until he learned how to deal with them healthily.
In this case, he hadn’t been paying much attention to the date until he woke up one morning to realize that it was the anniversary of Randall’s death. Not being prepared for that sent him into a kind of tailspin and he just couldn’t deal with… everything.
When he finally emerged, he was in his Moon Knight suit, mid-battle with some apparent low lives somewhere in a tropical environment.
“Welcome back, mate!” Steven said as he beat a man in the back with one of his truncheons. “Good to have you ‘round, again!”
“Yeah, good to be back.” Marc picked up the fight seamlessly, throwing a crescent moon at one man’s head while kicking another in the stomach. “I think. Who are these guys and why are we fighting them?”
“Oh ‘s a new criminal organization. Still pretty small, luckily, but they’ve started human trafficking, forcing children into drug running, ‘n’ they’ve committed a few murders.”
“The usual. Got it.”
Eventually, they had taken out the boss, clearly not a native of the area, and the few underlings that hadn’t been forced into it. It had taken hours, though, and they were all bone tired.
By the time they got home it was almost 6 AM, and Marc just wanted to fall into bed, but their body was covered in dried sweat, dirt, and other people’s blood. “Yeah, mate, you can sleep if you want. No worries. But I’m takin’ a shower.”
He was only vaguely aware of something being odd about the towels in the bathroom cabinet before he went to sleep, while Steven turned on the hot water. They were all… put away?
When Marc woke up, it was past 11 AM. Only five hours of sleep, but he felt rested, and it was late in the day, so he got up. After some breakfast, and brushing his teeth, he wanted to run some errands out of the house. On his way to the closet, he passed the laundry baskets and noticed that they were empty.
Before he got too excited, he checked the dresser. Right there, in the top drawer, were all the sweaters, folded neatly. “Steven, wake up! Something absolutely incredible happened!”
“Whazzat?” Steven answered, still half asleep.
“The sweaters got folded!”
Steven laughed. “Yeah, we’re not completely incompetent, you know?”
“But neither of you ever fold anything.”
“This was a special case, so we divided it all up, yeah? I had to do more towels, but Jake took the fitted sheet, so I think it was a fair trade.”
“Does this mean that I’ll get some help with the folding in the future?”
“Not bloody likely. And don’t think you can fake an emergency every week to get us to help.”