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It's the stress-knitting that's the final straw for Marc.
He's still mostly convinced that the whole thing is an elaborate prank that Jake has cooked up. He's not sure whether this is because the alternative is so disturbing to him that he can't even entertain it, or because he thinks Jake is likely to attempt a prank on this scale. Whatever the reason, Marc refuses to believe that the clutch of eggs now nestled carefully in a temperature-regulated fabric basket of Steven's own design are actually their...
...offspring.
With Khonshu.
Yeah.
Jake pranking them all is definitely the origin he's chosing to run with. Because the other possibility takes Marc down a rabbithole he's not quite sure he's ready for. Hell, setting aside the logistics of the whole thing — which he now finds his mind drifting to with a kind of fascinated horror more frequently than he's willing to admit — he's never caught the slightest hint that Jake's relationship with his patron is anything other than businesslike. Which he would have assumed they would have noticed before, well, eggs happened. Mostly, he's just grateful that Layla didn't run for the hills the second Jake walked in through the door and announced they were going to be fathers. She had looked rather green after Jake's confession, but hadn't bolted. There are no words for how much he loves that woman and her capacity to take the strangest things they can throw at her in her stride.
Even so, they're quite large eggs.
Steven is, of course, happy to take the whole thing at face value. Hence the stress-knitting. Again, Marc's balanced on a knife-edge; Steven's level of anxiety is clearly expressed by the mountain of tiny knitted items that are building up. Which means he obviously isn't in on any prank. But Steven also has a bullshit detector so finely tuned that Marc and Jake can't typically get anything past him. If he had the faintest inkling that Jake wasn't on the level, he would have said something.
Wouldn't he?
But yes, back to the stress knitting. As neither Khonshu or Jake have deigned to give any indication of what the — breathe Marc — hatchlings might look like, Steven has been forced to improvise. That apparently means spending every free moment he has sat at the table where the eggs are safely snuggled in their heated nest, knitting needles in hand, while Layla reads to him from parenting books and brings him snacks to share. Marc hangs around some of the time, but finds the whole thing too unnerving and retreats to their headspace more often than not.
The eggs have hats. They're colour-coded.
And this has gone on for over a month.
So yeah, Steven's knitting is what finally pushes Marc into taking the whole thing seriously. And Marc's nothing if not practical. He's been researching; the kind of diligent study and planning he usually only brings to bear for life and death missions. He now knows practically everything there is to know about the care and rearing of chicks. How to feed them (he certainly can't see Khonshu hovering over their nestlings to regurgitate partially digested food, and quite frankly doesn't want to), how to regulate their temperature until they're big enough to do it themselves (the heat lamp's on order), how to encourage them to bond with him. He didn't ask for any of this, but now it's inevitable he's going to be the best dad he possibly can.
Both Jake and Khonshu are what can best be described as absent parents. When Marc presses them on being more involved, they both seem to be happy to delegate it all to him, Steven and Layla. Which seems a little unfair, given none of this is their fault. He does get Khonshu to agree to be present at the hatching; with any luck some sort of maternal paternal parental instinct will kick in if he's there. He hopes.
A scant handful of days later, the click-click of Steven's knitting needles stops dead and Layla pauses, sandwich half-way from plate to mouth.
"They're hatching!" Steven exclaims, "Marc! Jake! The eggs!" Marc doesn't let on that he's been observing most of the time today, just in case. One of the eggs had been rocking last night, and he knows that means hatching can't be far off. He's right, a tiny beak has tap-tap-tapped a hole in the side of one of the eggs.
He nudges Steven for control and is slightly surprised when he cedes it instantly, allowing Marc to gently remove the woolly egg hats then leap up and fetch a shaving mirror and the heat lamp. When he gets back, unspooling the electrical cord for the lamp behind him, Layla's hanging up a call on her phone and Taweret is hovering behind her, practically bouncing with excitement.
Babies! she coos. How exciting. Marc's kind of glad she's there. They may be hatching not being born, but having a goddess of childbirth about can only be a good thing for their children.
He settles the mirror on the table, angles it to take in everything. Of course Steven and Jake can watch through their shared eyes, but he still feels more comfortable talking to them in the mirror.
Last to arrive is Khonshu. The god bends over the nest, the tip of his beak hovering scant inches over the eggs. Marc's fingers twitch with the suppressed instinct to swat that vicious point away from the vulnerable infants.
Let me know when this is done, the god rumbles, and stalks of to sprawl on the couch, utterly disinterested.
It takes hours. Almost all childbirth does. But by the end, six eggs lie in pieces in the nest, trampled underfoot by a half-dozen tiny, web-footed, fluffy bodies.
They're cygnets. Fucking cygnets. Baby swans.
And he's disappointed.
"You all knew?" he asks looking around at the gods, at Layla, at Steven and Jake in the shaving mirror. "You knew they were swans?"
"Well yes," Steven says. "We assumed you did too. The bird rescue will be over to collect them a bit later."
"And all this?" The sweep of Marc's hand takes in the books and skeins of wool. All this for a joke at his expense? The flat's full of pregnancy books and baby clothes and Steven's vast stockpile of tiny yellow cardigans and bootees and... and... his head is suddenly suspiciously quiet, and both Khonshu and Taweret have disappeared.
Layla puts down her latest sandwich, and takes both of his hands in hers.
Oh.
Oh.
He's been an absolute idiot.