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Marc had only just gotten out of the shower when Layla confronted him.
“Are you still Moon Knight?” she asked, suddenly and with some force.
He blinked at her. “What? Of course not!”
They had been back in London for a few months now. Layla had moved in, though they were considering finding another flat. Steven’s flat was a little small for two people, and he had so many books in each available space. ( I’m not getting rid of any of my books , Steven had said, laying down a strict rule. No one touches his books. No one gets rid of his books.) They had already lost the flat they had together, so finding a new one was the general idea, but it was only in the planning phases. Layla liked the clutter of Steven’s books and Marc found the familiar surroundings comforting. They were looking, but not vigorously.
“You promise that you haven’t gone back to working for Khonshu?” Layla asked.
“I did not go back to working for Khonshu.” Marc put his hands on her upper arms, rubbing his thumbs gently across her skin. “Where did this come from?”
Layla lifted her phone and showed him a news article. It was about a new masked vigilante in London, one that was suspiciously moon themed and left behind a trail of crescent shaped darts.
“He’s probably just got a new avatar,” Marc said. “You know how quickly he would have dumped me to get to you, it’s not a surprise that he’s moved on so fast.”
Layla nodded, but she worried her bottom lip between her teeth. “Just, for me,” she said. “Could you…?”
“Could I do what?” Marc asked.
She’s really worried about this, in’t she? Steven said from the headspace.
“Could you try to summon the suit?” Layla asked. “If you can summon it, then we know that something’s up. If you can’t, then we know he’s just moved on really quickly and it’s a coincidence that his new avatar is also in London.”
Marc dropped his hands and nodded. There was an odd tingle at the back of his neck, an almost whispered thought of “Don’t do it”, but he took a step back from her and clenched his fists. At first, when he thought about the suit, nothing happened, but when he thought about it around him, the linen bandages wrapped around his arms, chest, and legs, there was a familiar tugging sensation at his navel. The bindings wrapped around him, the cape fluttered down behind him, and his eyes were momentarily blinded by the bright light of the moon.
Standing in front of Layla, his suit back on his body, Marc wanted to scream.
“ You weren’t supposed to find out about that ,” came a voice behind him.
Layla summoned her suit and turned to face Khonshu, her fists raised in a ready attack stance. Marc slowly faced the skeletal bird, a hand rising to his chest to remove a dart.
“You said you would let us go,” Marc said.
He could feel panic rising in his throat like bile. The room was going blurry. He could hear Layla yelling at Khonshu, could hear Khonshu yelling back, but their words were coming through like sludge. Marc couldn’t feel Steven near him, couldn’t hear him. There was something else though, a growing pressure between his shoulder blades and a feeling of being pulled back.
The suit flickered, causing Layla and Khonshu to stop their shouting. The bandages receded and grew darker, the cape and the crescent on his chest becoming an almost blinding white. His gloves and boots stayed white, while the rest of the suit went black. Glowing white eyes stared out from the depths of the cowl.
“ Ah, my favourite avatar ,” Khonshu sighed. “ Good. I was coming to collect him anyway. ”
The other Moon Knight glanced up at Khonshu and then around at the flat. He seemed almost confused as to why he was there.
“ ¿que mierda?” he asked.
“ My son, ” Khonshu said. “ I have a new mission for you tonight. ”
Layla was staring at the stranger in her husband’s body.
“Repito ¿que mierda?”
He looked around the room again, eyes landing on Layla in her armour.
“¿Me llamas delante de ella?”
Khonshu let out a dramatic sigh. “ I have told you, my son, I do not speak Spanish. English, Egyptian, Greek, Latin. I do not know what you are saying. ”
“Por eso hablo español.”
“He asked why you called him in front of me,” Layla said. She had heard Marc speaking Spanish before, he was fluent, but this man? He sounded like he’d been speaking Spanish for his entire life, not just occasionally. “He also said that he speaks Spanish because he knows that you can’t understand him.”
“ I did not summon you, ” Khonshu said.
“Entonces, ¿por qué estoy aquí?”
“Marc summoned the suit,” Layla said.
The man turned to look at her again. “Marc summoned the suit?” His fists clenched and he took another glance around the room, looking for whatever threat had caused Marc to react like that. When he couldn’t find anything, he looked at Layla. “Why did Marc summon the suit?”
“I asked him to,” she answered, her fists rising in defense again. She didn’t think that this man would attack her, but she also had no clue who he was. “I saw a news story saying that a new hero had sprung up, and there were vague pictures of someone who looked like Moon Knight, only… Well, only he looked like you.”
The mask and hood phased away, leaving his face uncovered. He looked so much like Marc, they shared a face, but he was also so different. The way he held his jaw, the slight tilt to his head. The anger in his eyes.
“Look,” he said. He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed, lifting his other hand to point a finger at her. “I barely know who you are, so please tell me that you’re at least close to Marc.”
“Close?” she repeated. “I’m his wife.”
“Okay, good, question answered.” He dropped both hands and turned to face Khonshu again. “You got anything else to say, bird brain?”
“ I have a mission for you tonight, ” Khonshu intoned dramatically. “ A traveler of the night is in danger, we need- ”
“Aight, I’mma deal with that later,” he said.
Layla felt a spark of amusement at this alter's dismissal of the god. The New York accent was also new but vaguely familiar, as if she had heard Marc talking like that before. This man let the suit drop completely. He looked down and raised a hand to his chest as if to protect his modesty.
“Why am I not wearing a shirt?” he asked.
“Marc just got out of the shower,” Layla said.
“For fucks sake…” he sighed. “Just, let me get a shirt before anything else happens.”
“ Jake Lockley, I demand that you- ”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, stuff it,” Jake replied.
He walked around the flat, trying to find a clean shirt but he obviously hadn’t spent much time in their home. He opened a cupboard here and a cupboard there, but grumbled when he didn’t find anything.
“The dresser next to the bed,” Layla said. “The one on the left.”
“Left as if you're looking at the bed or left as if you're on the bed?” Jake asked.
“Looking at it,” Layla answered.
She didn’t know what it was, but she found herself warming to Jake. He pulled a shirt almost aggressively over his head, pulling on a pair of sweatpants, too. He padded his way quietly back to her and Khonshu.
“You an avatar, too?” he asked, looking at her. “Or you just like costumes?”
“I’m an avatar,” Layla said. “Of Taweret.”
“ Hello! ”
Jake visibly jumped when the goddess in question popped into existence in front of them. The suit flickered back around him for a few seconds, then dropped again.
“Who the fuck are you?” he snapped.
“ I’m Taweret, Goddess of women and fertility, ” she answered.
“Why the fuck are you a hippo?”
She shrugged.
Layla could see faint panic on Jake’s face, as if it wasn’t really his fear.
“Is Marc okay?” she asked.
Jake made a so-so movement with his hand, not once taking his eyes off Taweret. “He’s kind of screaming in the headspace, but he can’t hurt himself in there, so he’ll be fine.” He took a deep breath. “He’s definitely having a panic attack, and I kinda pushed Steven so far down he’ll probably be asleep for a week or two, so he’s going to have to deal with it on his own. He is very close to me though, so it’s kind of… uh, seeping through.” He glanced quickly at Layla before his eyes retreated back to Taweret. “Did you know that hippos are one of the most dangerous animals on this planet?”
“Why are you still Khonshu’s avatar?” Layla asked, ignoring his fun fact.
Jake finally looked away from Layla’s goddess, eyes down to avoid her gaze. He shrugged, mumbling something.
“What?” Layla asked.
“ He said that this is the best way to protect them, ” Khonshu answered. “ My favourite avatar knows that he must be the Moon Knight to protect the travelers of the night, he cannot just throw away his sacred duty. ”
“Bitch,” Jake said. “It’s the best way to protect them, as in Marc and Steven. It’s my job to make sure that those two are safe, capiche? I don’t give a flying fuck about the travelers of the night, I just know that there are a lot of people that want Marc dead. Hell, he’s already died twice, and that doesn’t even include the times he tried-”
He stopped. He looked down at the floor again, mad that he’d said anything.
“The times that he tried what?” Layla asked.
Jake looked up at her, his face a mix of exasperated and just plain unimpressed. “You do know that your husband is like, clinically suicidal, right?”
Layla shrugged, feeling awkward. “I mean, I’ve picked up on it, but he’s never done anything to himself.”
“I’ve had to clean up the mess from his four attempts, what the fuck do you mean he hasn’t tried to do anything to himself?” Jake asked, his voice rising. “Dios mío, woman, he was gonna kill himself if Khonshu hadn’t stepped in.”
“ That is true, ” Khonshu said.
“Shut it, fuck face, I don’t like you anymore than I like this situation that Marc got us into, but who the fuck am I to argue with super strength and super healing?”
“ Being an avatar does come with its perks! ” Taweret said.
Jake startled again. “Fucking Christ, I forgot about the hippo.” He backed up a few paces and stood behind Layla. “She is freaking me out.”
“ She? She is causing you fear, but I am not? ” Khonshu boomed.
“Listen, shit head, Marc was twenty five when he got us into this mess, it’s been almost seven years of getting used to your ugly mug. She’s a full on hippo, not some bird skeleton that thinks it’s all high and mighty. Hippos are deadly. Hippos are terrifying. Bird skeletons are not.”
“ Oh, I like him, ” Taweret told Layla.
“Me, too,” Layla said, letting her suit slip away. “I think I like him a lot.”