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Marc is not a stranger to panic attacks.
Panic has been built in his bones since birth and his tumultuous time in primary and his old secondary school only stoked its flames, leaving him with a ticking time bomb that blows up at damn near everything.
From a particularly perilous patrol that narrowly resulted in him getting impaled by an Akuma and crushed by building debris while moonlighting as Rooster Bold to getting back a test with not so great marks, a rogue wave always sat on the edge of the horizon threatening to roll into shore full force and pull him under.
And when it does, he drowns.
He thrashes around, gasping for air, only to choke on the heart in his throat and suffocate on a sea’s worth of self-doubt and certain doom. All that’s left for him to do is sink until someone comes along to drag him out, which more often than not means his parents coming to pick him up from the nurse’s office or hiding out somewhere on school grounds, far away from people, until the attack ends. He could drag himself back to class with a carefully constructed excuse to explain his absence and/or tardiness, depending on how suddenly it comes on.
He rarely tells people when they happen – in fact, he’s pretty sure no one in his class is even aware he has anxiety issues this bad. They just see him as another awkward, bumbling mess, like Marinette, who probably has some minor social anxiety, struggles with talking to people, and expressing himself.
And, as he surmised, it’s better this way.
He gets to keep his friends and not seem like the unstable weirdo he was back in primary school, who drew attention away from the teachers just to throw a little hissy fit over the smallest of transgressions.
Is it lonely? Yeah. Can it scare and shake him to his core at times? Of course.
But everyone has a battle to fight, and sometimes those battles are fought alone.
Marc’s panic attacks are no one else’s problem, so he can deal with himself.
That is, until he can’t.
• —– ٠ ✤ ٠ —– • ·
It's a week after Aurore's akumatization into Climatiqueen.
She's stuck with the typical cloud of shame and embarrassment that hangs over the victims of the new butterfly miraculous holder, tip-toeing on eggshells around her classmates and being a lot stiffer and more withdrawn than normal.
Everyone tries their best to be kind and patient with her. It's hard to fault akumatized victims, considering most of them don't intend to hurt those around them.
Monarch – or, Chrysalis, now – just take their pick of the pile, who's the saddest or angriest that day, and everything starts to roll downhill from there.
The words from the chorus of voices sound a lot sweeter, and every promise of relief and retribution becomes a lot more titillating and closer than they are in any one person's hands–or, any one Monarch’s hands.
Marc and the others try to be nice.
They do their best to remind her that she's not the destructive person Chrysalis created last Tuesday, that she didn't mean it, and that everyone was fine in the end, but despite their reassurances and pretending nothing happened, Aurore spends her day walking a tightrope. She's on edge, even around her best friend, Mireille, whom she spends all her time with. When her head's not in the clouds, when she's not re-running events in her head about what she could've done differently, how she could've been different, her nose is buried in her phone. She blocks and unblocks people, deletes her social media accounts only to reinstall them, and cooks up excuses that something is wrong with her phone or her account is being hacked. She drafts a million apologies in her notes app that she never posts or sends when Marc happens to catch a glimpse of her screen during class or break, when she’s too busy playing with her charm to notice.
There’s always a hand on her charm at all times, and it’s more apparent during study hall in the library right before lunch.
She’s sitting next to Marc, paying no mind to her homework or even the meteorology magazines that sit between the two. Her eyes are on her lap, staring blankly at her phone’s black screen. Marc tries to keep his curious glances to a minimum and keep his eyes on his projects.
The bell rings, and everyone quickly rises from their seats to hurry off to lunch.
Everyone except Aurore.
She’s stuck in her chair, head looming over her phone. Marc remains in his seat, reaching a hand toward her.
“Aurore? Are you okay?” he asks, waving his hand a little.
Aurore blinks in surprise. Her head snaps up, and Marc fails to hide his flinch.
“Sorry!” They say in unison, sharing awkward smiles afterward.
“Ah, I’m sorry. That was a little rude of me…,” Marc says. “I just wanted to see if you were doing okay.”
“O-Oh, don’t…worry about it. I ’m–I’m okay,” she says, her small smile wobbling until it completely disappears again.
She starts packing away her things at a slow pace, carefully considering each item as she places it in her backpack. She stops when she comes upon a worn issue of National Geographic. The cover is a collection of dark heliotrope and gray clouds, lightning flashing across the sky and seemingly striking into terracotta rocks. Her free hand instinctively flies up to her charm hanging around her neck, twirling it between her thumb and her pointer finger. Her other hand clutches the magazine tightly, her thumb running up and down the beaten-up spine.
“That looks interesting,” Marc says.
Aurore whips her head to him. “O-Oh. Yeah, it’s…it’s kinda old. I’ve…had it since I was five or something. Can’t really remember…”
“What’s it about, if you don’t mind me asking?”
Aurore shrugs. “The usual weather and climate change stuff. Rising temperatures, ice caps melting, the plant dying – you know, all the fun stuff.”
Marc chuckles a bit. “I bet.”
“I mean, there are other things in here, too,” Aurore starts thumbing through the pages. “I think there’s a whole ‘Beginner’s guide to reading weather patterns’ somewhere…”
Marc’s brows arch in surprise. “Wow.”
“I was thinking of making a video about it,” her sky blue eyes started to dull in real time. “Maybe make a series based on everything I've learned from things like this and the news, and try to teach people about what's going on–”
“Why don't you? That sounds really interesting!”
Aurore scoffs. “Who would want to watch anything I make? Especially after everything I did…”
“Aurore, that wasn’t y–”
“Yes. It was,” she says. It’s so blunt and matter-of-fact, like it’s undisputable knowledge. “You know it was.”
Words are lost on Marc. His mouth sits agape while his emerald eyes search the library for something to say, but he comes up empty.
“How long has it been since you were akumatized?”
The question falls over Marc like a bucket of ice water. He continues to stare dumbly, his throat tight as he tries to swallow the lump lodged in it, and both his hands grab the underside of his chair.
“Wha…what?” he asks after struggling to get the words out for at least a minute.
“How long has it been? When was the last time you were Reverser?” Aurore asks again, her tone even and flat.
Marc's heart knocks violently against his chest. His body rattles, his stomach twists Into knots, and his mouth becomes sandpaper as he tries to form the answer to what should be a relatively simple question.
“...A-A year, I think?”
“Do you remember how it felt? When Monarch sent his little butterfly your way and picked you?”
She's staring dead at him with her blank eyes, so gray and devoid of light and focus, almost as if she's looking through Marc instead of at him.
Marc shudders.
So far, he's thankful to have only been akumatized once and almost re-akumatized twice. ‘One of the lucky ones’, some say, one of the lucky few who haven't fallen back in the clutches of the Butterfly's holder without needing Ladybug to bestow a protection charm on them to keep them from turning into villains.
Though that doesn’t mean his mind never drifts back towards the day Monarch found him, and from him, birthed Reverser.
The lingering guilt carved a permanent spot in his brain, and a lump of fear stays stuck in his chest.
Now and again, he'll reach for his journal only to pause for a few seconds, eyeing it to make sure it hasn't shifted into an oozing violet and ebony sludge, or if a new voice enters his head that isn't his own, or his characters’, Nathaniel's, or Maël's, prodding him and echoing all of his anger and anxieties and sadness back at him and warping it and his body into something that drips with vengeance and an endless well of rage.
He’s not sure how he’s managed to stay off of both Butterfly Holders’ radars for so long. Nearly everyone he knows has been akumatized at least three times, sometimes into the same villains, sometimes into newer ones with just as little self-control.
He really has been lucky so far…
“So–Sometimes,” he chokes out after realizing how quiet he’s been.
Aurore seems to smile at that, but it’s so…hollow. Like a doll’s face. Even the small chuckle she lets out sounds so foreign, almost as though she’s trying to force out some sort of brevity.
“Monarch could be so bossy, you know? He never cared about any of us…just about his stupid Miraculous …,” she sneers. “He didn’t even ask me my name…”
Marc clears his throat and forces a nod, humming in an equally compulsatory understanding. “Yeah, he, uh…he never asked me my name either.”
“He just kinda tells you who you’re supposed to be and what to do…yells at you and makes your head hurt if you don’t do what he says…He was such a dick.”
“Y-Yeah. He…He was.”
“Chrysalis is a lot nicer, you know?” she says, almost wistfully. “They’re all so nice. They really…really make you feel…like a person, like you can give you what you want. Like you’re…like you’re in control of it all. And I…I think I really was. And I…”
Aurore falls silent for a long time, her eyes becoming pin dots. Marc contemplates reaching out to her or running. His heartbeat explodes in his ears and through his body. He noticeably shakes and starts to inch away and out of his chair, but he cannot bring himself to rise and get away when Aurore needs someone’s help, and if he needs to be that someone for his struggling classmate, then he’ll do it.
Aurore’s eyes burn holes into Marc’s head. His gaze starts to linger elsewhere to withstand her intensifying eye contact. Marc opens his mouth to offer her comfort, but she beats him to the punch with something far more unsettling:
“I did it on purpose, Marc. I know I did. I hurt those people on purpose because I wanted to. Chrysalis just gave me a good enough excuse…”
Marc’s heart sinks into his stomach. The library is dead silent except for the whine between Marc’s ears as Aurore slowly rises from her chair, wordlessly gathers her things, and walks away and out of the library.
Marc stays stuck in his chair for what seems like forever, his mouth agape and his racing heart threatening to burst out of his body. His gloved hands are drenched in sweat and shaking. Everything shifts out of focus, doubling and blurring in Marc’s vision. He whips his head around until his eyes land on the window behind him, and his breath is ripped from his lungs as his eyes settle on a butterfly, sitting on the windowsill right outside the glass.
He cannot tell whether it’s one of Chrysalis’ corrupted critters or a normal butterfly, but he doesn’t care. He manages to grab his things and bolts out of the library. He stumbles into the hallway, sprints past the cafeteria, and keeps running until he finds himself in the rooftop garden. He darts inside the supply shed, tripping over some gardening tools left strewn across the floor.
He faceplants into the floor and lets out a ragged gasp. The floor is smeared with his blood, so is his shirt, and the tips of his trembling fingers. Tears spill from his eyes, further obscuring his already distorted vision. An orange and yellow dot materializes in front of his face, nearly bumping into his aching nose.
“Marc!” Orikko shouts urgently. “Marc, what’s going on? Are you okay?”
Marc tries to force out a reply, but all that comes out are his ragged breaths. His head whips around, and the room spins and is speckled with white stars. Or butterflies – oh god, the butterflies.
They swarm the outside of the supply shed, slamming into the windows in droves. Marc chokes out a sob as he swears he sees cracks form in the glass of the building.
He tries to shout the words to transform out, but all he does is sob and gasp and gulp for air. He can’t send his thoughts to Orikko, though, given how scrambled his mind is, he doubts he can form anything concrete as of now. He scurries under a table, hugging his knees to his chest and burying his face in his knees. His breaths are ragged, his lungs burn, his throat is tight, and everything has been knocked off the Earth’s axis. Tears and blood stain his face and his jeans. Orikko’s pleas are a million miles away, while all of the butterflies sit right outside of the supply shed.
• —– ٠ ✤ ٠ —– • ·
Nath: hey, you coming?
Nath: your class is over now, right?
Nath: I’m in the cafeteria.
Nath: Rainbow?
Nath: hey, are you okay?
Nath: marc?
Nath: are you okay?
Nathaniel’s scrutinizing cerulean eyes remain down on his phone as he passes through the hall and into the art room to search for his partner. It’s been almost an hour since he’s heard from Marc, and while he didn’t want or like being as overbearing as he is, this isn’t like Marc.
They know each other’s schedules like the backs of their hands. If either of them is running late or can’t show up to their planned meetups, they let each other know right away. This is especially true for Marc, who updates Nathaniel every 5 seconds when he accidentally takes a wrong turn in the newly renovated building. But he hasn’t even opened any of the messages, and considering it’s already 30 minutes since his class ended and lunch started, Nathaniel’s concern is steadily rising through the roof.
The library’s empty, and so was the spot underneath the ground-floor staircase. He enters the art room, eyes traveling across the tables with only a handful of students working on their projects, but there’s no Marc in sight.
He chews the left corner of his lip. His eyes drop back down to his phone. He refreshes the chat, but no new messages from Marc appear.
“C’mon, Rainbow…Where are you?” he mutters to himself.
“Nathaniel!” Diane calls from one of the easels, waving him over.
Nathaniel smiles wryly at her, returning her wave as he approaches her.
“Hey, Diane. Have you seen Marc at all today?”
She shakes her head. “No, I’m sorry. I’ve been here all day working. Can you believe I spilled a can of yellow paint on my canvas and it made a replica of the Mona Lisa?”
She gently takes her canvas and turns it to Nathaniel, grinning from ear to ear. The image is almost a one-to-one replica of the original Da Vinci in a soft, dandelion shade. Nathaniel can only offer his wavering smile as a form of acknowledgement.
His phone buzzes in his hand, and his head drops down to his hand. Marc’s name flashes on screen. Nathaniel picks up within milliseconds.
“Hey, I’ve been looking for you –”
“Na..Nath…?”
Nathaniel’s heart plummets into his stomach. His face drops, and his hands get ice-cold. The voice on the other end is strained and crumbling as each syllable leaves their lips. He turns and starts rushing for the door.
“Marc? Hey, what’s wrong? Where are you?” he urges as he darts into the hallway with his head on a swivel.
“Nath, I ca– I can’t move. They-They’re outside…”
“ Who is outside? Marc, where are you?”
“Th-The Butterflies…They – They’re outside. They’re outside, Nath –!”
“The storage shed!” Another, much higher voice exclaims. “On the roof!”
The call quickly disconnects. Nathaniel races out of the art room and up the staircase to the rooftop. He doesn’t stop after he knocks into some of his classmates or when they shout after him in concern. His heart pounds a million miles a minute, and his ears ring as Marc’s ragged voice bounces around his head.
The transformation phrase is on the tip of his tongue, but with all the people around, he risks potentially outing himself as Caprikid to his entire school, meaning he can’t contact Ladybug or Chat Noir or any of the other Miraculous holders to help deal with the situation, so he’s going in with a messenger bag, a portfolio, and no powers.
Still, he keeps running.
He forces the rooftop door open, bracing himself to face a swarm of sickly purple butterflies or, more likely, an akumatized Marc.
The midday sun blinds Nathaniel for a few seconds as it floods into the dark stairwell. When his eyes finally adjust to the light and land on the storage shed, there’s nothing. The door is ajar, so Nathaniel races inside and throws the rest of the door open. No butterflies in sight, but droplets and a small puddle of blood on the floor
Marc’s gasping breaths and chopped-up sobs lead Nathaniel to a table covered in gardening equipment. Marc is hiding underneath, curled in a ball with dried blood on his fingers and knees and taking labored breaths. His entire body is trembling.
“Marc,” Nathaniel breathes.
He falls to his knees beside Marc. He reaches out his hands but pulls them away as soon as Marc violently flinches the moment he catches sight of Nathaniel from the crook of his arm.
“Hey! It’s just me!” Nathaniel exclaims, throwing his hands up in surrender. “It’s me!”
Marc’s head perks up. His bruised nose and the top of his lip are stained with dried blood. His eyes are an angry red and puffy, his cheeks streaked with tears.
Nathaniel’s face drops, and his stomach goes cold. “Oh, Rainbow. What happened?”
“I-I – I–!” Marc stammers with short and harsh breaths in between.
“Marc, honey, you need to breathe – ”
“I-I ca-can’t!” Marc exclaims. “Chr-Chrysalis – Th-Th-They’re looking for me! Th-They’re outside! All of them.”
“Honey, nothing is outside and nothing is looking for you. You’re safe!”
Marc continues to shudder and sob. Nathaniel scans the supply shed. His eyes widen as he catches sight of an approaching akuma fluttering towards them. Marc doesn’t notice Nathaniel’s fearful expression; he’s still struggling against the sea of doubt and terror.
Nathaniel sucks a breath. He plants the balls of his feet firmly on the ground and his hands on Marc’s shoulders. Marc’s head snaps up again, and Nathaniel keeps his gaze steady, his face softening.
“Nothing is coming to get you,” Nathaniel states. “Nothing is coming to get us, and even if anything is – which there’s not – I’ll protect you, okay? I’m here to protect you.”
Marc manages a small nod.
“Focus on me and try to follow my breathing, okay? Like this,” Nathaniel inhales big but slow, holding his breath for about five seconds before steadily exhaling through his mouth. “Can you do that for me?”
Marc shakes his head. “I don't – I don't know –”
“Come on. Try it with me. Like this.”
Nathaniel draws in a slow breath, and Marc tries to follow alone as best he can. Marc draws a shuddering breath, struggles to hold it in, and eventually lets it go as a gasp.
“That's it. Just keep following me, okay?”
Marc nods.
They continue in this manner, taking deep and slow breaths in unison while maintaining eye contact with each other, despite Nathaniel’s needling urge to keep an eye on the approaching akuma. Marc slowly begins to come back to himself. His body relaxes, his breaths even out, and his tears become few and far between, only coming one at a time rather than spilling over his emerald eyes like a tidal wave.
Nathaniel starts to smile as Marc finds his bearings. He takes a final breath, free from Nathaniel’s instruction, and with the final exhale, Marc’s face softens into a serene expression.
“Are you still with me?” Nathaniel asks.
Marc nods slowly.
“Good. That’s good. We’re gonna do one more thing, okay? This one’s a little quicker, promise.”
Marc nods again.
“Okay, so – what are 5 things you can see right now? It can be anything. You don’t even have to think too hard about it. Just whatever you see, and tell me what it is.”
“Uh,” Marc glances around the room before his eyes return to Nathaniel. “...You. The cute silver hair clips you’re wearing. Your sketchbook —”
“Okay, they can’t all be about me.”
A smirk plays at the corners of Marc’s mouth. “Hey, you said they could be anything. ”
Nathaniel rolls his eyes playfully. “ Fine. Keep going.”
“Your freckles…The gardening tools on the tables.”
“Good! Now, what are 4 things you can feel right now?”
“Your hands on my shoulders…The rips in my jeans. My face kinda feels…sticky?”
“You were crying a lot…”
“And the blood, too. I feel it on the top of my lip.”
“Okay. 3 things you can hear?”
“Your voice. My voice. I think…birds?”
“Good, good! 2 things you can smell?”
Marc sniffs. “Uh…mostly my blood? Can kinda taste it too…”
Nathaniel sighs. “Well, that covers the last one on the list. How are you feeling?”
Marc lowers his head, one hand going to grab his other arm. “Honestly? Kind of a lot, still. A lot embarrassed. Face hurts. A lot.”
“Yeah. We should probably take you to the nurse’s office. Maybe a hospital. Think you can stand on your own, or do you need my help?”
“I think…I might need a hand.”
“Okay,” Nathaniel says. He stands and offers Marc his hand. Marc grabs it gratefully, and Nathaniel lifts him to his feet.
Marc stumbles a bit, colliding with Nathaniel as his wobbly legs struggle to keep him upright. Nathaniel takes one of Marc’s arms and slings it around his neck while one of his free hands settles on Marc’s hip.
He slowly guides Marc out of the supply shed, taking the opportunity to glance over his shoulder and check for the butterfly.
It circles above the building, bobbing up and down but never entering the building.
Nathaniel shoots a glare at it as he and Marc leave for the nurse’s office.
• —– ٠ ✤ ٠ —– • ·
Marc can hardly bring himself to speak as the nurse examines his swollen nose, gently prodding it with her fingers. Marc winces and sheds a tear each time, regardless of how careful she tries to be. Nathaniel is right at his side the entire time, irrespective of his prolonged silence.
It’s obvious that his nose is broken– to what extent, none of them know, though from the amount of pain and blood–so, so much blood–it can’t be good.
Suppose he manages to get a moment alone. In that case, he can transform and grant himself the power of healing, or maybe reconstruction to reset his nose back into place enough so his parents won’t be too worried or suspicious when they inevitably race over to pick him up. So he won’t have to go under the knife at the recommendation of the doctor they are going to drag him to.
Though by how tightly Nathaniel’s grabbing his hand and how he’s missing class just to sit by him as the nurse calls his parents, he might not get the chance to until he’s at home and alone.
The nurse finishes talking to Marc’s worried parents and hangs up the landline, handing Marc another ice pack with little frogs printed on it.
“Your mother is on her way,” she says with a sympathetic smile. “You can wait for her until she gets her. But, I suggest your friend here head back to class before Mr. Damocles gives him detention.”
Marc hides a chuckle at her calling Nathaniel his ‘friend’. Nathaniel rolls his eyes.
“I think he knows,” Marc replies with a small smile.
“Remind him for me, then. Seems he’s got cotton stuffed in his ears.” The nurse gets up from her chair and heads for the door. “I’ll let your teacher know what happened. Be back in a minute!”
“Thanks, Sissy,” Marc says as she leaves, giving her a small wave with his free hand.
When the door shuts, Nathaniel scoots as close to Marc as physically possible. He takes the froggy ice pack from Marc’s hand and gently applies it to one side of Marc’s swollen nose. A sharp and throbbing pain shoots through the middle of Marc’s face, and he lets out a hiss.
“Sorry,” Nathaniel says, offering a sympathetic wince and letting Marc hold the ice pack on his own.
“Thank you,” Marc whispers.
Nathaniel gently rests his head against Marc’s, a hand sliding onto Marc’s shoulder.
Marc gnaws on the inside of his cheek. He can feel Nathaniel’s eyes burning into his skull, trying to pry the answers to the questions he’s been stacking in his mind since he found Marc in such a horrible state almost an hour ago.
When Nathaniel can’t coax anything out of Marc with his puppy dog eyes, he defaults to what he knows to work the best – just asking.
“So…you wanna tell me what happened up there?”
Marc picks a pencil on Nurse Sissy’s desk – a glittery pink one with a little pompom on the tip of the cap – to focus his attention to further avoid Nathaniel’s stare.
“Not…really. It’s…It’s embarrassing –”
“Oh sure. Because finding your boyfriend with a busted nose, covered in blood, and having the worst panic you’ve seen since you had your own in front of Alix’s mirror after Chloe tries to get you in trouble with your parents and the cops over a stupid, knock-off bracelet is suuuper embarrassing. Real cringe shit, I’m sure.”
Marc glances Nathaniel’s way. “I…didn’t know you got them too.”
Nathaniel shrugs so nonchalantly and matter-of-factly, like Marc just found a fork in the kitchen.
“They don’t happen often. Like, once every couple of months? It was before I met you and before I started seeing someone for my…issues. Guess this time it just slipped my mind. It’s not like I never have them anymore, but I’ve kinda learned to deal with them better. Kinda have to with all of this Monarch, er – Chrysalis crap goin’ on, you know?”
Marc shrugs with a small shrug. “I guess that’s how you were so good at helping me through mine…”
“Yeah, well, I…you were scared, I was scared, and I…I hate seeing you suffer like that, so of course I’m gonna do whatever I can to help you.”
The faucet behind Marc’s eyes starts up again, and a few tears well up and spill over.
“Oh, Marc. ”
Nathaniel pulls Marc into a hug, rubbing small circles into his back. Marc cries against Nathaniel’s shoulder, clinging to his overall straps.
“I-I’m sorry! I-I didn’t mean to lie to you!” Marc sniffles.
Nathaniel shakes his head. “No, Marc. It’s okay. You didn’t mean it. And besides, I want you to feel comfortable telling me things when you feel like it. Yeah, I wish I had known sooner, but if you didn’t want to tell me, that’s your choice. You don’t have to force yourself to open up with me.”
“I do,” Marc protests. “I do because you’re one of the only people I feel I can be open with. It’s just…I…”
“Deep breaths,” Nathaniel says, and Marc slowly draws in a breath and exhales as he starts digging at the box he’s been trying so hard to bury since primary school.
“It’s…It’s hard for me to talk about them. They started from a place that wasn’t…the greatest. I was pretty much alone for all of them because when they happened in public, people thought I was just trying to get attention. There were some rumors about me when I was still trying to figure myself out, and hardly anyone wanted anything to do with me. My parents are one of the only other people who know, but even then, I don’t tell them how often I have them.”
“How often do you have them?”
Marc shrinks a bit. “...A lot. Sometimes over little stuff. Sometimes it’s big stuff. Sometimes it’s the big stuff trying to pretend it’s little stuff.”
“And what was it today?”
Marc hesitates. “It…was something Aurore said. Made me paranoid. Made me think too much until I started to spiral…”
Nathaniel sighs. “Oh, Rainbow…I’m sorry you had to go through all of that alone.”
Marc shrugs. “It’s what I’m used to. It’s how I kept myself safe for this long…”
Nathaniel pulls away, taking Marc’s hands in his and holding them tightly.
“You don’t have to do that around me,” Nathaniel says, eyes dripping with sincerity as he stares Marc right in his eyes. “If you don’t want to talk about it with anyone else, that’s cool. But if there’s any way I can help you or make you feel better, I wanna do it. I wanna be someone you can rely on. Someone you trust. Someone you feel safe with…”
Marc starts to get bleary-eyed again, the tornado of nervousness whirling around in his chest being replaced by an explosion of warmth. He cups Nathaniel’s face in his hands and presses a soft and slow kiss to his lips. Nathaniel’s brows arch in surprise, but he quickly falls into it, reaching up a hand to cradle Marc’s cheek. Marc melts into his touch, lighting up like a wildfire despite the throbbing pain radiating from his nose throughout the entirety of his face.
The door opens again, and the boys break from the kiss, both of their faces beet red as Nurse Sissy and Mr. Damocles enter.
“Marc, your parents here,” Sissy says.
“O-Oh, okay. Thank you.”
“Need me to walk you out?” Nathaniel asks.
“Oh no, my boy. You’re coming with me,” Mr. Damocles says. “You’ve missed far too many classes this afternoon. Nurse Sylvie can escort Marc outside.”
Nathaniel rolls his eyes. He pulls Marc into a quick hug.
“Call you later?” he asks.
Marc nods, smiling against Nathaniel’s cheek. “Definitely.”
Marc slides off the bed and follows Nurse Sissy out of the office. He glances over his shoulder at Nathaniel, who’s trailing behind Mr. Damocles in the middle of lecturing him. Nathaniel smiles, which Marc returns before heading down the stairs to the first floor. Orikko pops up on his shoulder and hides among his dark locks of hair.
“Good to see you’re in better spirits,” they say, smirking.
Marc jumps a bit. “Ori, not now.”
“What? I’m just saying that it’s good to see my holder in a better condition than earlier.”
“While I appreciate your concern, I can’t talk to you like this right now. Especially when you almost exposed yourself to Nath earlier!”
“Did you say something, Marc?” Nurse Sissy asks.
“Uh, no! Talking to myself, really.”
Nurse Sissy nods and keeps walking.
“I was trying to help you,” Orikko states.
Marc sighs. “I know. Thanks. But, be more careful next time? Please?”
“Hmph. I could say the about you.”
Marc rolls his eyes, but he cannot deny the statement, nor Orikko and Nathaniel’s concerns.
It’s been years since he’s been able to feel somewhat safe making friends and getting close to people at school, let alone getting a boyfriend so willing to stick by him through the maelstrom of his emotions.
And yes, with this world of superheroes and super villains running around and causing chaos in more ways than one, he might not be 100% safe all the time, it’s a little nice to know that there are people with him who are willing to help him feel safe, and who are just a phone call away.