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Marc and Layla had made an agreement with each other after everything. After the Scarab, Marc’s disappearance, Harrow and Ammit. No more secrets.
No more secrets between the two of them, no more leaving without communication, no more trying to protect the other without telling them; and as messy and upsetting as it had been, Marc had told her everything.
After all, nothing could’ve been worse than telling Steven, than showing Steven everything that happened. And it took hours, took crying and breaking down and Layla having to coax him through it - but now she knows. And there are no more secrets between them.
Well. Almost no secrets.
“I need to tell you something,” he says to her one night, more or less against his will, but he knows it has to come out at some point. He trusts her, of course he does. She had said he could tell her anything and she meant it.
Marc had told her the worst parts of him, everything he thought would make her hate him, would make her think he was weak - but nothing. Confiding in her wasn’t the end of them like he thought it had been. She took all the worst parts of him and held him in her arms like he was still hers.
It was the most loved he’d ever felt. But talking is still hard, because he’s never been one to tell anyone anything, not when he was young and certainly not now.
Layla is different. There’s always a way with Layla.
He sits on the floor, back resting against their bed as she walks in, looking down at him with something in her eyes that’s not fear, but something similar. Concern or worry, maybe, because she thought he’d told her everything, thought there was nothing more to hide.
She’ll still love you, he tries to tell himself.
“Okay,” she says simply, like Marc isn’t terrified, like it doesn’t feel like the end of the world. “Are you alright?”
“I killed his fish,” Marc tells her, his breath stuck in his throat, and - he’d meant to say it in a better way, he’d meant to explain what was happening, not just blurt it out. He freezes in his spot.
“Fish- what?” Layla takes a seat by his side. “Whose? What are you talking about?”
It’s clearly a bigger deal to Marc than it is to her - she doesn’t even know what he’s talking about and she sounds so confused but he promised there would be no more secrets and it’s eating him up inside and now he’s actually come to telling her he feels so stupid-
It’s just a fish. It was just a fish, but it was Steven’s fish, and he killed it.
By accident, sure. But he still did it.
It was still his fault.
And he feels like he’s always hurting Steven in one way or the other.
“You ruin people’s lives,” Steven had said. “Everything you touch you ruin.”
Of course, Steven had barely known him at the time, had barely known what was going on, who Marc even was, the things that had happened to make them both the way they were - but it still stuck with him. It still hurt.
“Marc?”
Layla says his name like she’s actually realised he’s upset over it, her tone less confused and more gentle. He’s embarrassed by it, the way she can already tell.
“Steven’s fish,” he clarifies in a mumble, clasping his hands together in front of his mouth like muffling his words will somehow make all of this easier, will somehow alleviate some of the guilt. “Gus. Before everything, before he knew about me. I forgot I needed to feed him and I came back too late and he was dead.”
A horrible lump settles in his throat. He’s Marc Spector, he was Khonshu’s avatar, he was shot twice and he lived and now he’s about to cry over a fish. Steven didn’t even cry over the fish and it was his fish, and Marc just feels-
He doesn’t know. The lump doesn’t go away and it feels unbearably hot behind his eyes where tears are beginning to form - because it’s a fish, and he doesn’t understand why he’s so upset.
“Steven has a fish, though,” Layla interjects. “I’ve seen it.”
“I replaced him,” Marc says quietly. “I bought a new one because I didn’t want him knowing about me, about Khonshu, but his fish had only one fin and I couldn’t buy another fish with one fin, so he found out.”
It’s out in the open, now. It’s one less secret between him and Layla. It’s not the worst thing he’s ever done - it’s far from the worst thing he’s ever done - but it’s gnawing at him in a way that nothing usually does. It pains him in the same way it did when he had to leave Layla.
He’d hurt the people he loved while meaning to protect them. And, he thinks, that’s what hurts the worst.
It’s just a fish, but it upset Steven, and that’s what matters. It was just a fish but it was Steven’s fish and he was always meant to protect him - and he failed.
“I wasn’t sad about it when it happened. Just annoyed. At myself, I mean,” Marc carries on, like spilling all of it out into the open will ease the guilt, will make the terrible aching feeling go away. Layla had wanted him to talk to her, anyway, and they both wanted for there to be no more secrets, Steven wanted Marc to get better at opening up- but it doesn’t make it any easier.
He continues nonetheless. “I was so busy with the Scarab and Harrow so that was the last thing on my mind - but now I’ve had time to rest and think and I’ve failed him, Layla. I’m not meant to hurt him. All of this was to protect him.”
The lump in his throat gets worse, thicker, heavier. He thinks his voice will crack if he speaks anymore and he knows he can be vulnerable in front of Layla, she’s his wife, but he still doesn’t want to break down in tears when she can see.
“All of this… was to protect him,” he repeats, quieter. “And I got us killed. I showed him… everything he wasn’t supposed to see, I hurt him and I let him fall in the Duat and I killed his fish and it’s just so-”
“Marc. Marc. Baby, I know,” Layla says softly, cutting him off but in a kind and gentle way, saying with her eyes that’s enough. You’re okay. I don’t want any more from you.
She cups his cheek in her hand and tilts his face towards her; he can’t help but lean into her touch, the comfort she offers. It’s something he rarely let himself give into, the way he felt under her hand, something tender and safe.
He takes a shaky breath in to keep the tears at bay, tries not to think about Gus - and then all that progress is lost as Layla strokes his skin with her thumb, and he’s so dangerously close to crying.
Underneath all of his desire to not suddenly burst into tears, he knows it would be okay. He knows Layla would soothe him without question, knows she would wipe away the tears with such loving hands, knows he could be unconditionally cared for. But knowing all of that still doesn’t make it any less hard.
“You know he isn’t angry at you for any of that,” she tells him softly. She says it so surely that Marc almost believes her. “He doesn’t blame you for any of it.”
Layla takes her palm away from his face to hold his hand instead, the gesture calming and innocent, something he feels like he doesn’t deserve. Why should he have this? Even if it was to protect her, he left her. Marc Spector hurts everyone and Layla is no different.
Self-hatred spirals down his entire body and Layla still holds his hand like he’s worthy of anything.
“I’m not a good person, Layla,” he says with a pitiful attempt to hold back tears. “There’s chaos in me. Harrow said it.”
“Harrow was batshit insane,” Layla says, squeezing his hand.
“He was right.” Marc bites the inside of his cheek and squeezes her hand back.
“He was wrong about everything. Releasing Ammit, killing innocent people before they could do any harm, that’s why we stopped him - so what makes him right about anything else? Especially you.”
“He said…” Marc stops for a second to sigh. “That if you found out the truth, then you’d see me as I see myself. As unworthy of love. And-”
“And you believe him?”
Marc doesn’t say anything.
Of course he believed him. Not that he wants Layla to know that, but it’s true: how could he be worthy of love? After everything he’s done, after everything he never said, after everything that happened to him.
His hand stays grasped tightly in Layla’s. Her question hangs in the air between them and the guilt almost prevents him from answering, because he knows she won’t want to hear it, and he’s close to tears and he can’t do this, it’s all a bit too much, and-
And Layla’s hand is squeezing his again, silently telling him it’s alright.
“I didn’t marry you because I thought you were a good person,” she tells him earnestly. “I married you because of shit like that. Because you knew he’d be upset, and you replaced the fish so he wouldn’t be. Because you’re working so hard to fix all of this. Marc, I married you because I love you.”
Like a dam breaking, Marc grasps Layla’s hand hard and bursts into tears.
He’s been building up to it. It’s not a surprise, not to Layla or to him; it had been inevitable since he asked to talk to her, really. Letting out all of the guilt and shame and hurt just got to him and it’s all been building up and now he’s crying and Layla is cupping his face again, even after he told her about Gus and how he believed Harrow and she doesn’t care.
She doesn’t care. She just gently brings his head to her shoulder and tells him that she loves him.
Marc doesn’t get feeling loved. It’s not familiar and it’s not ordinary and it’s terrifying, to know that he could be loved. That he is loved.
Layla’s hand slips out of his and he loses her touch for only a second before she’s pulling him into a hug, loving and honest and all-consuming; her arms resting around his waist and his head falling into the warm space between her neck and her shoulder and her lips pressing against loose curls over and over again as he cries.
He doesn’t know if he can stop crying. It doesn’t feel like he can. But he knows Layla isn’t going to let him go.
Her hair smells of something familiar, of something that feels almost like home, a scent he knows yet can’t quite name. It tickles his face and right then, in that moment, he doesn’t feel anything but peace.
The guilt is there, still. Just not as tight around his chest and not as painful in his mind.
It’s difficult to think of anything else. All he can feel is Layla, all he is is Layla, holding onto him and keeping him safe while he cries the way he hasn’t in the longest time.
He doesn’t think she’s ever seen him like this, and part of him is scared she might be disgusted, scared she might leave, scared she might leave him like he did her - but she pulls him even closer, runs her hands up and down his back and hums softly in his ear.
“I’m proud of you,” she whispers. “For telling me. I know it wasn’t easy.”
“It’s just a stupid fish,” Marc says through tears, and suddenly it all comes crashing back down because he’s crying over a fish. He’s a grown man crying over a fish and his wife is comforting him over it.
Layla sighs, kisses his temple. “But it was still hard.”
Marc melts into her without a thought, body exhausted. It was hard, but now it’s easier, with Layla slowly starting to card her fingers through his hair as she notices how tired he is, how any trace of fight has left his bones. He doesn’t feel like Moon Knight, doesn’t feel like real justice, not right now. He’s just Marc.
As Layla wraps a curl of his hair around her finger, he slowly begins to realise that he’s cried himself out. He lies slumped half on top of her, completely drained and used up, and she still treats him exactly the same, however strong he feels.
If Harrow were to come back right this second, if any threat were to come to them where they are right now, Marc couldn’t protect her - and yet she doesn’t seem to mind.
She would be the one protecting him. And it’s taken a while, a long while, but he thinks he’s okay with it. Her hand rests flat on the crown of his head, gently patting his hair from time to time, but otherwise unmoving.
Layla can protect him. He places his utmost trust in her and feels safe, for once, wrapped up in her hold, knowing no harm can come to him because she simply wouldn’t let it.
The feeling is foreign, being loved and being safe, but it’s so Layla. The feeling is her, and only her, the only person in his life who has truly made him feel that way.
He feels her wipe away the drying tears on his cheeks with a gentle hand.
“I missed you,” he says.
Layla smiles, looks down at him with the softest expression Marc’s ever seen. “I missed you too,” she says, brushes her thumb over his cheek underneath his eye to wipe his tears, takes the most vulnerable part of him and soothes the ache like it’s nothing. “I’m glad you’re back.”
“I’m glad we’re back,” he says in a whisper, catches Layla’s hand in his own and holds it, the gentlest and most innocent of touches, something he so desperately needed without knowing it. To be loved, unconditionally, completely.
Layla sees him as worthy of love and when she touches him, holds him so gently, tells him she missed him, she was proud of him- he almost starts to believe it.