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There was something inherently inhuman about Marc Spector. Of course, him being the avatar for the literal moon god was definitely pretty strange—but there was always something grounded that accompanied every hero Quill had worked with thus far.
It had been pretty fun taunting MoonKnight. Not making fun of him in any manner, just trying to get him out of his shell and have any sort of emotion other than impassiveness.
So when MoonKnight told Peter his real name— and directly to him, too! —it was an understatement to say that he wasn’t at least a little bit giddy. Peter liked calling the two of them friends, but Marc probably thought the opposite.
Still, even with the limited amount of information Marc shared about his life, Peter still wished to see what lay behind the man’s mask. To ground himself as human. As far as he knew, the man practically showered with it on with how he never took it off. Quill wasn’t sure why he cared so much in the first place, but it was something to ponder about whenever he was bored.
One night at the shared base in New York, Peter couldn’t sleep. It was weird—usually, he was knocked out as soon as his head hit the pillow wherever he was sleeping.
The “base” that Reed Richards had put together for all the agents was basically just an office building renovated into some sort of makeshift hotel. There had been barely any available rooms for the purpose of sleeping, so Peter had to share a room with Mantis. It wasn’t a problem until he felt her arms wrap around him in the middle of the night through her sleeping haze. Quill hadn’t the heart to push his sister off—no matter how suffocating it was in the moment. He eventually sighed, carefully unfolding the empath’s limbs off of him, and stood up, his footsteps creaking across the floor on the way to the door.
Before leaving, he tiptoed over to his duffel bag strewn across a chair in the corner, rustling through it until he found his beloved walkman and accompanying headphones. Out in the hallway, the eerie quietness was interrupted as Peter slipped on his headphones and turned up the music. He didn’t quite know where he was going—he planned to just walk around until he got bored and eventually tried to fall asleep again.
After about 10 minutes of walking through the base and looking at practically nothing, Peter almost collided headfirst into something. He hadn’t even noticed the figure in front of him before it was too late, and Quill was sent toppling to the floor along with his headphones.
“Ow, shit —” Peter started, looking up at the culprit. Moonlight streamed through the window on his left, illuminating the face of a man he’d never seen before.
The man was tall and built, with tawny skin and a scruffy beard. His hair was short and curly, the dark color of it matching the man’s tired eyes which were now widely staring down at Peter.
“Wha—watch it, man! Are you even supposed to be here?” Quill quickly got to his feet, retrieving his headphones off the floor which were still blaring music.
“I—Peter, it’s Marc.” The man answered, his voice hesitant. He sort of stumbled in place, placing a hand on the wall next to him to balance himself.
He’d never mistake MoonKnight’s gruff voice anywhere. Quill stared in disbelief for at least a minute. His mouth was wide open as he took in the man’s appearance. It was something he thought he’d never get the chance to see, and now it was on full display in the moonlight. Ironic .
And by god, the man was gorgeous. And bleeding, too. Wait— why was he bleeding?!
“Oh. Uh, okay… Fuck , are you okay dude?” Peter stumbled over his words, his eyes darting from the bleeding gash in Marc’s side to his face. Somehow he didn’t want to look away; as if this was all an elaborate dream and the MoonKnight wasn’t standing here, and he wasn’t really fucking hot.
Marc looked off to the side before answering. “No. Not really,” He grumbled, his blood-stained hand clenched across his stomach—contrasting greatly with the white shirt he was wearing.
“Do you need Mantis? I can wake her up.” Peter started, stepping a bit closer to the man, his features laced with concern.
“No—don’t do that, one person is enough,” Marc replied, his voice firm.
“ Enough ? What—do you want me to patch you up?” Peter questioned, a nervous chuckle escaping him.
Marc shook his head fervently. “I meant my face. You weren’t supposed to…see this.”
“It’s not a bad-looking face—if that’s what you're worried about.” Peter almost immediately regretted saying that. He really did cope with humor in the worst situations.
MoonKnight just glared at him, before his offset slipped from his hold on the wall.
Peter acted on instinct, stepping forward to balance the man by settling his grip on his waist, holding him upright.
“Thanks,” Marc said quietly, a bit out of breath.
Up close, Marc smelled like sweat and blood, but something faintly crisp—presumably the man’s cologne. Peter slapped himself internally, trying to get his head on the right track.
“Alright, if you really are stingy about this—I’m gonna have to put you back together.”
MoonKnight simply grunted in reply, his free arm resting across Quill’s shoulder as the pair stumbled through the hallway.
The walk took a little bit more time with the floundering, but the pair eventually reached one of the base’s bathrooms. It had been connected to one of the private offices, but the door was unlocked for the agent’s utilization.
Peter shrugged Marc off of him for a moment, leaning him up against the sink before shutting the door behind them and flipping on the light. The space wasn’t too cramped, but it was still only meant for one person. He’d have to make due.
With quick hands, Quill dug through the medicine cabinet before finding a first aid kit. It had a thin layer of dust on it and presumably hadn’t been used for who knows how long, so Peter convinced himself they were in good hands.
His hands , nonetheless—but he would try his best for Marc.
Setting the first aid kit on the sink counter, he turned his attention to the injured man at his side.
He was already watching Peter with steady eyes, his gaze suddenly feeling heavy as a flush crept up on the back of Quill’s neck.
“Uh…just need to check your wound first. I’m praying it won’t need stitches—otherwise, you’ll have to settle for dental floss.”
Marc grunted in response again, slowly gripping the end of his shirt before pulling it up over his head. Every move he made looked like it sent a wave of pain throughout his body, and he groaned out as he threw the shirt to the floor.
Peter desperately tried not to dwell too hard on the sound the man had just made, instead focusing his eyes on the gash now fully revealed. It spread across MoonKnight’s impressively toned stomach. The wound was pretty deep, the edges of the skin flaying open in a way that definitely warranted stitches.
“That bad?” Marc snorted, noticing Peter’s look of uneasiness.
“ Yeaaah , I think I’m gonna have to bring out that dental floss.” Peter chuckled sheepishly. “Are you sure you don’t want me to wake up Mantis? Or even Jeff?” He continued to talk—as if to distract himself from looking at Marc’s pecs.
The vigilante shook his head before leaning back on the counter, his hands gripping the edges. “If you do that—Khonshu won't like it very much, Starlord.”
Peter tried to discern if what he said was an actual threat or not. His eyes locked with Marc’s, something he could do now that the man’s mask was discarded. But there was no hint of a smile or even an amused crease of Marc’s eyes—and Peter could feel his heartbeat ramp up as they both stared at each other.
“Uh…alright—Whatever you want, moon buddy.”
Marc rolled his eyes at the familiar nickname, huffing out in exhaustion.
Peter took that as his cue to get going. He opened the medicine cabinet door again, before grabbing a small case of floss. He then looked back into the med kit, thankfully finding a needle suitable for the job.
Running a towel under the hot water, he moved closer to the injured man and gingerly dabbed at the wounded area, trying to wipe off some of the blood. Marc’s skin was cold to the touch, and Peter felt him tense up ever so slightly as the warm towel made contact with his stomach.
Quill really tried not to focus on the limited distance between them. It was probably the closest he’d ever been to the man, and the fact that his face and body were revealed added a whole other level of intimacy to the situation. Peter finally felt as if MoonKnight was human . He actually had a face behind the mask—and he actually got hurt.
Peter remembered one mission where Marc was complaining about blood stains to their fellow teammate Dagger—and while she answered pretty uneasily, Quill was almost positive that he wasn’t talking about his own blood.
So seeing Marc in such a state of vulnerability—the blood stains that accompanied the white he usually wore now from his own injuries instead of his enemies—was more than a little out of the ordinary. Not that Peter was complaining, though, he did get to see MoonKnight shirtless.
Oh god, he was whipped , wasn’t he?
“Quill.”
Marc’s demanding voice brought him back to reality, and Peter apologized under his breath before ripping the towel away and discarding it into the sink.
“You stare too much.” The man added, his eyes practically watching Peter’s every move.
“Can you blame me? I mean—you’re fucking ripped, dude. It’s impressive,” Peter laughed, the admittance flushing his face a bright red. He moved to thread the needle with floss, trying to prevent himself from spouting more stupidity.
“Oh. Thanks.” Marc coughed, before continuing. “Khonshu wouldn’t have it any other way. Helps with beating more people up.”
Ah—a subtle reminder that it wasn’t just the two of them. Khonshu, Steven…and whoever else was housed in MoonKnight’s head. Awesome, more pressure in case he screws this up.
“Hold still, this will probably hurt like shit.”
Peter moved his hands back to the man’s injury. He heard Marc take an uneasy breath, his hands shaking slightly against his grip on the counter.
Peter looked from his hands to his face. He raised an eyebrow, now seriously considering waking up Mantis if the man was this nervous.
“Never gotten stitches before?” Peter inquired, not moving to make an incision just yet.
“No, it’s not that.” Marc coughed, closing his eyes for a split second before opening them again. “Just—a lot of voices. You can get on with it, Quill.”
Peter nodded in understanding before an idea struck him.
“You wanna wear my headphones, man? I think it’ll help.”
Marc thought for a moment before nodding. “Sure—what’ve you got?”
Peter scoffed. He really needed to get Marc up to date on his incredible music taste—everyone needed to know, it was common knowledge at this point.
“Only the best tunes in the fuckin’ galaxy,” He answered, clicking to skip through a couple of songs on his cassette before landing on one he’d thought MoonKnight would like.
“Here,” Peter adjusted the headphones onto Marc’s head, definitely not letting his hands linger before pulling back and clicking play.
“It’s about nighttime, moons, and stuff—I don’t know, maybe you’ll like it.” Peter huffed out a laugh, focusing back on the task at hand.
He let his hands touch Marc’s sides, looking at the man in approval. He nodded, and Peter got to work in piercing the flesh.
He tried to get it over as fast as possible while also being efficient, but it proved to be extremely difficult. Sure, he’d stitched himself up a couple of times and Mantis had taught him the basics of tending to wounds, but the difference between stitching yourself up and a man you definitely didn’t harbor feelings for was staggering.
The song Peter initially put on for Marc was long over, the process of stitching his flesh back together taking a couple of songs until it was finally over.
Quill tugged on the end of the floss, tightening the wound before tying it and snipping the excess off with a pair of tiny scissors he found in the med kit.
“Alright. All done.” Peter grinned, satisfied with his work. He looked back up at Marc, the man’s expression matching his own—albeit a little more muted. The corners of his lips were turned in a small grin, music still playing from the headphones.
“The music helped, I hope.” Peter chuckled, stepping forward to try and take the headphones off before Marc’s hand stopped him.
“Wait—could I borrow these? Just for the night?” Marc replied, his hand settling atop Peter’s.
“I—uh, sure. Of course.” Quill stumbled over his words again, surprised at the forwardness in Marc’s gesture.
Marc nodded, taking the headphones off and leaning away from the sink. Peter took a step back, his mind recovering from the little short-circuit.
The injured man reached down tentatively to pick up his shirt off the floor, shrugging it on over his head before facing Peter.
“Thanks, Quill. I owe you one.” Marc broke the silence. “ We owe you one.” He corrected, giving a tired smile to the man who patched him up.
“Of course. Anytime—just don’t make it a habit, y’know?” Peter added the last part with a dazed chuckle, now all too aware his face was probably bright red.
Marc turned before opening the door to the bathroom, Peter following behind him as they exited the room into the dark hallway.
“Khonshu thanks you as well. In his own way.” Marc said, his face stern once again.
“Tell the bird it was no problem. And uh…have a good night, Marc.” Peter smiled, reaching out his hand which still held the Walkman towards the man.
Marc nodded, their hands brushing together for a moment. Then he took the Walkman and stuffed it inside the pocket of his sweatpants.
“Good night, Peter Quill,” Marc replied before turning away and disappearing into the hallway's darkness. As a final gesture, Peter caught a glimpse of the man slipping on the headphones.
It was safe to say that when Peter got back to his room, he didn’t sleep another wink the entire night.