Work Text:
“Does it get infected?”
Marvelous blinks.
“…What now?” He asks slowly. He’s rather exhausted at the moment, thank you very much . Not even the fucking Zangyack, just some bounty Hunter who thinks they’re easy targets.
And, okay, maybe the guy was right, to a certain extent. Marvelous does currently have a very painful stab wound in his shoulder that leaves him one armed for at least a week from what all it tore through. Ugh.
But they did still kill the guy shortly after. Him and his new crew.
(Now that there’s three of them, plus Navi he supposes, it becomes easier to forget the old one. To not think about Basco’s teasing touches in the past versus the trained and clinical way Joe helped bandage the aforementioned stab wound in the near-present.)
Luka pokes his shoulder.
“That,” she says. “It’s poisoned. And it looks nasty. Where I come from that’s a death sentence.”
“Well, you’re not where you come from,” Marvelous says. “And neither am I. Give it a week.”
Luka shrugs.
“Fair enough,” she replies. He likes her. She gets it, but she’s different, too. Intriguing.
He’s got a soft spot for the strange ones, he supposes. That’s how he ended up on this ship, himself.
His ship.
“So you’ll just… heal up?” She asks.
“Yeah.”
“Weird,” Luka says, and then she shrugs. “Let me know if you need help with anything, I guess.”
“Sure, sure.”
(He thinks this is how it feels to find a family.)
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry!”
Marvelous rolls his eyes at Don’s begging tears, and tries and fails to sit up. Ugh. Broken bones. It hurts, and horribly so. This is why he hates them.
Unfortunately, these too take time to heal. He hates weakness. He hates showing it even more so.
“It’s fine,” he says. “Stick to what you can do, next time. You’re good at that.”
“Still,” Don says. “I don’t know why you keep me around. I’m why you have at least 4 broken bones.”
Because you can do everything but fight , Marvelous thinks. He doesn’t think about the last time someone like that was on this ship (mostly, before the end). He has an unfortunate habit of trusting to easily that he will never admit to anyone. Because for some reason, we’re all fond of you and your weird ass fighting and the only reason the ship looks and works as well as it can.
“Because you’re mine,” is what he says. “My Crew… now please tell me you made food.”
Don laughs.
Good.
“You STABBED YOURSELF IN THE FOOT!”
“Yeah,” Marvelous says. “It hurt like hell, but it worked.”
“You’re insane,” Gai says. “Genuinely. Are you okay? Do you need anything?”
“I’m perfectly fine,” Marvelous says. And he is. An easy fix, as cells knit back together in his boot.
He finally killed Basco. He’s finally fucking free of his past, and maybe they all are.
Now they just have to… figure out the Keys or whatever.
Perfect.
“That—”
“I heal faster than humans,” Marvelous says. “Than most humanoids, honestly. So calm down. We have much more enjoyable things to worry about.”
Gai looks unconvinced, but he nods.
Marvelous thinks that the future must be bright.
“I’m sorry.”
“You weren’t there.”
“That happens,” Ahim says firmly. “I have to fulfill my promise.”
“Your planet has half a government,” Marvelous says. “They’ve been fine with you here before, so what changed?”
(That’s not what he’s really angry about. He’s not even angry that she’s fulfilling an arranged marriage by her own choice. He’s just possessive, and a little worried, and Gai has moved to Earth to help with some Sentai gambling ring, and, really…
Really, for all he chose to go it alone when he ran to space as a child, for all he’s perfectly strong, he’s still afraid of loneliness.)
“You know it’s not for me,” Ahim says. “His second pick was a teenager.”
“I know,” Marvelous says. Ahim sighs.
“I will always be a Gokaiger first,” she says. “All I ask is for you to trust me. As much as I shall always trust you.”
(The next week, Queen Ahim De Famille officially states she is no longer a Gokaiger. Luka breaks their TV in seconds, and Marvelous would have joined if he could possibly stand.)
They’re all gone, is what he can’t stop thinking. After the enemies he’s been tracking leave Marvelous for dead, he just kind of collapses.
The eye will grow back, but oh, this is agonizing.
This is worse than any other total loss he’s felt because he knows it’s his own damn fault. He knows half of them left because he pushed them.
He can’t stop the tears because he can’t stop the damn blood. They mix on his face as his body trembles among the wreckage of his entire life.
The world goes dark.
(Things get better.)
“I was told you actually did lose that eye,” Joe says. Later, when they’re alone. All together again, yes. Working on acquiring a new Galleon, definitely.
But they all have their natural pairs within the larger crew, the larger family.
(Also they’re all still aggressively bad at talking about their feelings in a straightforward manner, but that is neither here nor there… But he doesn’t want Kadoya bothering him because Joe has decided to cry to Kaitou about the breakup from hell, so fine, maybe he’ll deal with it all, just a little.
…a little.)
“Well, yeah,” Marvelous says. “It grew back.”
“Must have been painful.”
(Probably the worst he’s experienced alone.)
“Definitely was.”
Joe step closer, cups Marvelous’ face.
“We’re all too stubborn,” he says. “Aren’t we?”
“Isn’t that how we survive?” Marvelous asks. “Like cockroaches in the side of whatever problems we feel like fixing. But we fix them.”
Oh god. Now he sounds sentimental. At least only Joe is here to hear him.
“And now we go back to normal,” Joe says. “Fitting.”
“We’re exactly where we should be,” Marvelous says.
We’re together.