Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Maddie didn’t know how long she’d been in this room. There was no clock, and she was pretty sure she was being kept underground, so no using the sun to track the days. She didn’t even know where she was—she’d woken up here after they’d knocked her out. 

The last memory she had of her dad was him yelling for them to let her go, leave her alone, while watching through blurred vision as he was physically dragged away. For all she knew, he was in a room right down the hall from her little cell. 

They didn’t call it that, of course, and they made sure she had no chance to. Her jaw ached around the tube down her throat.

She was in and out of consciousness most of the time. She hadn’t eaten since they brought her here. More tubes than she could come up with reasons for snaked in and out of her arms. Probably some of them kept her alive and “fed.” 

None of them gave her painkillers though. That, or they had really bad, entirely ineffective painkillers. 

Maddie was mostly conscious when they came for more samples this time. She wished they’d knock her out, but she supposed she couldn’t expect lunatics like them, who didn’t even see her as human anymore, to care about that. 

They drew blood first. They always did. Vials of it. 

Once they’d filled their tray, they peeled back the bandages on her arms. She healed far faster than a human, she’d gathered over the course of their visits. 

Within their sterile hazmat suits, connected by radios or some crap, she saw their mouths moving and didn’t hear a word of their discussion. 

Maddie rolled her head to see her arm where the bandages had been. Her skin was still pink with irritation around the scales that were mostly reformed after they’d been surgically removed. 

One of the scientists picked up a scalpel from the tray they’d rolled in with them. He moved to the end of her bed and put the cold blade to the scales at her ankle. She flinched as much as the combined sedatives and mild paralytics allowed. The sharp sting never got any better. 

He lifted a small patch of her scales into a little container. It stoked a burning anger in her: that was a piece of her, and they kept stealing more and more and more. And there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it. 

A second scientist sliced a strip of freckled skin from her shoulder. It was sick that Maddie had to feel grateful that they’d avoided her face so far. She was doubly grateful that they never changed out the tube, and so left her mouth alone. She didn’t want to know what they’d do if they discovered some of her teeth had become much more fang-like recently. 

As these two scientists finished retrieving their fresh samples, the last two in the group of four took up positions on either side of her. They began peeling up the medical tape for the plastic sheet covering most of her torso. 

Maddie’s eyelids sank closed. So it was gonna be one of those days. 

She felt the pull of the tape, the smush of soaked gauze, the sudden cold air sneaking into her insides. She didn’t want to look. Not again, god, the nightmares had been awful after that first time. 

She knew what she’d see if she looked down: her skin peeled and pinned back, exposing a sea of internal organs. 

Okay. So maybe the painkillers weren’t totally useless. If they were, she imagined she’d feel a lot worse than the deeply uncomfortable sensation of hands sliding along her intestines or investigating her ribs. 

She had no idea what they hoped to find by poking around in there, or if her mutations had even actually changed her on beyond the cosmetic. Maybe some of her organs were blue now to match her freckles. Maybe her insides glowed in the dark. 

A tired numbness crept over her. With her eyes already closed, it was easy to slip back into the wavering dark of semi-consciousness. 

Maybe, maybe, maybe. Maddie liked playing a game of maybes. It was the closest thing she had to hope in this underground medical torture chamber. Like, maybe the scientists would run out of tests to perform. Maybe they’d all drop dead and leave her alone. Maybe one of them would secretly grow a conscience and sneak her out. Maybe she’d wake up and find out this had all been a nightmare. Maybe she would fight past the drugs and escape. Maybe her dad would find her. 

Or maybe Godzilla would. 

Chapter Text

Vivienne stared up at the crack of darkness overhead, feeling rather like she was floating. The storm had calmed significantly, and the snowflakes drifted by serenely. Like stars. 

The ice cradling their little group of survivors creaked and echoed. She’d spent enough time at Outpost 32 to find the eerie noise an old friend. 

She could not feel the vast majority of her body. When Mark’s blurry face appeared where the crevice’s crack was, she told him so. 

He frowned—this wasn’t new; the poor man had been frowning nearly since they’d reunited in Colorado, and for entirely valid reasons—and looked up at someone on Vivienne’s other side. He said something, and a muffled quality in her ears slowly bled away.

“Damn, pick your reason for why,” a voice that was neither Mark’s nor Ishiro’s replied, and so it was not a voice she recognized easily. “Blood loss, hypothermia, frostbite, the tourniquets. There’s options.” 

“And there is nothing we can do about any of them,” Ishiro said, solemn. 

A women’s voice, this time, began, “If we try to gather closer together—” 

“We can’t risk jostling her. Her injuries—”

“Yeah, well, keeping her injuries stable won’t do her any good if she doesn’t live to see a doctor!” 

She wavered on the edge of sleep for a moment, the voices growing distant and hazy. There may have been some shuffling, but with the aforementioned numbness, she couldn’t quite tell if she was being moved. When her vision cleared somewhat, she found her dear friend leaning over her from the side opposite Mark. She thought he might have been clutching her hand, but between the thick mitten and the numbness, she wasn’t entirely sure. 

“The stars,” Vivienne whispered. “Do you see them, Ishiro?” 

He tilted his head back to look up at the narrow opening to the crevice their little group of survivors was crammed in. He stayed that way for a moment, and when he bowed his head over her again, his eyes were glistening. 

“Yes, Vivienne,” he said thickly. “I see them.” 

“I spent many lonely nights beneath them, watching,” she told him. Her tongue felt heavy in her mouth, but she persisted. “On a clear night… it’s endless.” 

“They are beautiful.” 

“Mm. I wanted to show you one day. Get you out of the office or—” She choked on a little laugh. “—or out from beneath the ocean.” 

“The depths do not look so different from the heavens,” Ishiro said. “The vastness is the same.” 

“Less stars,” Vivienne pointed out. 

His lips twitched in a weak smile. “I cannot argue that.” 

Vivienne let her eyes drift closed for a time. “Are you holding my hand, Ishiro?” 

“I am.” 

“I can’t feel it. I can’t move my fingers.” 

“Damn it,” someone further away muttered. 

Vivienne forced her eyelids up; they felt monumentally heavy, and her eyes were dry and scratchy. She turned her head to the right, discovered a steadily rising chest beneath her cheek, and found Mark’s worried eyes in the shadows. Indistinct bodies pressed in on either side of him, and his silhouette was lost in the jumble. But his eyes, those she could see just fine.

“Be honest,” she said, hardly louder than a whisper, both because the quiet night felt liable to shatter if she spoke too loudly and because her throat felt so scraped raw that she could not have produced a louder noise if she’d wanted. “How bad is it?” 

“Vivienne,” Ishiro said. 

“Hush. You have never lied to me, and I do not want you to start now.” 

Ishiro did not respond, and Mark visibly swallowed heavily. His cheeks were red and windburned, but his nose had taken on an icy sort of tint. Frostbite, her mind supplied. Not yet the most dangerous stage. 

She tried again to flex her fingers and failed. She was glad for the mittens, glad she could not see her own face or extremities. 

“Monster Zero got you good,” Mark said grimly. “Multiple lacerations, dislocated right shoulder.” His eyes, barely visible, flicked to the side. “It’s probably a good thing you can’t feel your legs right now.” 

“Amen to that,” someone muttered. 

Mark did her the courtesy of meeting her eyes to finish, “Suspected internal bleeding.”

“Not ideal,” Vivienne rasped. She was so tired. So cold.

A sound not unlike a bitten-off sob came from her left, but they were all packed so tightly around her, nearly on top of each other, that she couldn’t have been certain if it was Ishiro or not. 

“The Argo will be here soon,” Mark said. 

And Vivienne could not for the life of her tell it was the truth or a very kind lie. 

Chapter Text

Maddie grunted, pushing and yanking on the heavy wooden door. It shuddered in its frame but refused to budge. Puffing her cheeks out, Maddie gave it a frustrated kick. 

It was the only door in the tower’s main room, and no matter how many times she’d tried it, Papa never forgot to lock it. Even when he was home. 

She stomped to the window and stood on tiptoes to see as much of the valley below as she could as the sun rose. Hm. There were no bars or locks here, and maybe once upon a time, Maddie had been too scared of heights to even sit on the ledge. But now she was a big girl, a whole ten years old, and she wasn’t scared of anything. Maybe she could make a rope out of the sheets or some of the spare fabric and maybe the curtains—

“Maddie.” 

She flinched at her papa’s disappointed voice. Biting her lip, she peeked over her shoulder. She’d thought he’d still been sleeping, but he was sitting in the kitchen alcove, gold eyes bright in the dim light. 

“Good morning, Papa,” she mumbled. Dang it. 

“This is how you thank me?” he said softly. Goosebumps erupted over her arms, and she hunched lower against the stone window sill. “I save you, I house you, I feed you, I clothe you, I love you—and you try to run away before first light?” 

“I wasn’t running away!” she cried. Guilt soured in her stomach. “I just wanted to go outside for a little!” 

He tutted and rose from his chair. He was so tall that he made her feel very small, even though she wasn’t a little kid anymore. 

“It’s dangerous out there,” he said. “You—”

“You always say that,” Maddie complained. “But I never see anyone in the valley, or any monsters or—”

Papa was suddenly in front of her, crouching and taking her face in his big hand. “There are more threats than those visible to the naked eye. My starlight, you know that. Your nightmares…” 

She flinched and ducked her head. He didn’t let go. 

“Dark forces fill these woods, even in our valley. Our tower is protected, and if your nightmares are so bad even with those protections… well. You understand, don’t you?” 

“But—”

He shushed her, his other arm scooping beneath her bottom to hold her as he stood. His hand on her cheek slid back, over her ear, to bury deep in her thick, messy silver hair. She shivered. Papa was always so cold.

“I care about you, my starlight,” he said, pressing their foreheads together. His eyes bore into hers. “Don’t you care about me? Am I not a good papa to you?” 

“You are, I just—”

“I would be so sad if you left me.” 

“I wasn’t trying to leave—”

“Curiosity is dangerous. Let me show you.” And he climbed onto the window sill, sitting with his legs crossed. Shifting his hold on her to beneath her armpits, he leaned forward and held her over open air, legs curling in panic beneath her. 

“Papa!” Maddie squeezed her eyes shut against the dizzying sight of the ground so far below. A heaviness pressed into her, making her gasp and struggle to breathe. Her head filled with visions like her nightmares, her mind’s eye forced to watch a fire devour a village, screaming and wailing hurting her ears. Terrible lightning cracked across the billowing dark clouds, and a booming, echoing cackle shook the earth. “Papa, Papa, please! Please, make it stop, make it stop! I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry—!”

He pulled her into his chest, safe with the tower’s protections. She curled into him, shaking and crying. She clenched a handful of his shirt in her trembling hand, terrified he’d push her away or let her go or leave her alone.

“You see?” he said pleasantly. “Nothing good could come from leaving our tower. Right?” 

She nodded frantically. “I won’t try again,” she wailed. “I promise, I promise, please.” 

• • •

Her nightmares that night were so awful that she woke sobbing, sheets twisted around her legs. Her papa was in the doorway, eyes glowing. “Oh, my starlight,” he cooed when she spotted him. “You were screaming so terribly. The nightmares are hungry for you.” 

“How do—do I make them stop?” she gasped out between hiccups. He sat on the edge of her bed, and she immediately crawled to him. 

Papa hummed in thought. “How about you sleep with me tonight? Perhaps I will scare the nightmares away.” 

Maddie nodded weakly and didn’t resist when he lifted her into his cold arms. She didn’t even have it in her to shiver. 

The rest of her sleep was dreamless. And the same thing happened the next night, and the night after that, until Maddie clutched at him when he tried to put her to bed, and with a slow, wide smile, he brought her straight to his room, and the nightmares didn’t touch her.

Papa was the only thing that kept the bad things away. Papa would keep her safe.

Chapter Text

Inevitably, the question of custody came up. Emma held her tongue, curious to see what Mark would say. He had already lost his son. Would he fight for or give up his daughter? Would he make this easy for her, or would it become a fight?

The dark circles beneath his bloodshot eyes were more pronounced at each meeting. He wasn’t drunk this time, at least. But she knew if they didn’t come to an agreement, any judge would choose her over him. 

He sagged in place, looking a decade older than he was. “I—” he ran his hand through his hair; he quite clearly hadn’t showered in several days— “I don’t…” 

Stomach churning, heart racing, Emma cleared her throat to keep her voice from cracking. “You should take full custody.” 

Mark stared at her, uncomprehending. Beneath the table, Emma carefully kept her palms spread over her thighs. Calm, calm. 

“You… don’t want Maddie?” he asked, sitting up a little from his slump. 

Of course I want her, Emma wanted to scream. I would do anything to keep her—and that’s why I can’t. 

“The job I’ve accepted in Monarch means I’ll be traveling frequently, with the possibility of staying for long stretches in remote areas,” she said instead. Straightforward. Clinical. Almost even true. “That’s no way for Maddie to live. She deserves to be somewhere that feels like home.” 

Mark swallowed heavily. Something like fear shone in his eyes. “But I—what if—are you—”

She reached out to grasp the back of his hand, limp on the table between them. “I’m sure,” she said, just barely managing to sound earnest. “You’re a wonderful father, Mark.” 

He winced, pulling back and hunching down in his chair. She understood, she did, because she felt like as good of a mother right now as he likely felt as a father. Which was not terribly good, to put it mildly. But she needed him to agree, to step up, to believe he could pull himself out of the deepening, darkening pit he’d dug himself into. 

“We’ll arrange visits, of course. Holidays, her birthday, special events,” Emma said, praying she seemed casual and not strangled. She was hyperaware of the noose around her neck; there was no matching noose around Maddie’s—or there wouldn’t be, soon enough. “And as long as I have service, we can keep a routine of emails, if not video calls.” 

Mark stared at her like she was a stranger. She lost the fight; her hands twisted into a ball together, tight and hard enough to make her fingers ache. 

“I thought you’d take her from me,” he finally rasped. 

If the situation was not as complicated and delicate and terrifying as it was, she would have. She tried to smile in a way that wasn’t broken. “I wouldn’t do that to you, Mark.” 

Slowly, he nodded. “Okay. Okay, right. I. I’ll take custody of Maddie.” 

Emma’s heart wept for her baby, her precious little girl, and for a blindingly painful moment, she imagined standing, going to the living room, picking Maddie up from her huddle on the couch, and just. Disappearing. New names, new faces, new places. She could do it, she was sure, and do it well. She could take her daughter off the board, not just change the game but abandon it. 

But she couldn’t. Wouldn’t. Her heart wept for both her babies. 

“I think you’ll do each other some good,” she said, every atom of her being burning and raging and howling all at once. Her ears rang. 

Mark didn’t look so sure, but that was fine. The budding alcoholic with the potential for neglectful behavior, even unintentional, was still the lesser of two evils. 

“I’ll explain it all to her tonight,” Emma added. Two-fold dread sat like a collapsed building in her ribcage. She’d count herself lucky if Maddie didn’t turn glossy eyes up at her and ask if she’d done something wrong to make Emma leave her behind. 

Neither of their children had had marked favoritism for one parent over the other, but a parent leaving and a brother dying probably didn’t feel much different to a seven-year-old experiencing deep, foundation-shaking grief for the first time. 

Someday—and Emma would cling to this bright, idyllic, distant future like she was hanging from a ledge over an abyss—she would explain to Maddie that it hadn’t been about leaving her at all, but about keeping her safe. 

Somewhere out there, Jonah sat beside her comatose son’s bedside with his finger hovering over the off button for the life support. Andrew, impossibly dragged from the ruins of San Francisco by a terrorist, was alive. For now.

“Insurance,” Jonah’d murmured into Emma’s ear in the backseat of the car he’d “invited” her into. She’d been gripping the tablet bearing the image of her battered son tight enough to create warped ripples on the screen. “But so fragile.” His eyes had found Maddie through the window. “I would prefer a more… present reminder for you.” He’d smiled, eyes calculating. “Now, I am not without mercy. I will release your son into Monarch’s care—if young Maddison joins you on your work trips.”

She tried to convince herself she wasn’t choosing between them. Andrew was simply already involved, a chess piece held hostage in enemy territory, and nothing good could come from believing Jonah would keep his word. So away Maddie had to go, far from his reach, far from Emma’s.

This was hell she’d stepped into, and the only way out was doing as the devil said. But only just. And she would sooner sacrifice herself than either of her children, and especially not the one who stood a chance at staying free from his sharp clutches. 

Daughter successfully given up into the best safety Emma could manage, she breathed, and she managed not to choke on each breath, and she tried not to imagine how, in a few short weeks’ time, she’d say goodbye to Maddie in a way that might turn out to be permanent, and she’d go, because she was Andrew’s mother and so she must join him in the cage Jonah had built. Because that might be the only way to get her son out of it. 

Chapter Text

Godzilla did not bother to keep track of time, save his awareness that it had been too long. Any amount of time was too long in this situation. 

His bonded child had been stolen from him. From her sire. 

“They drugged both of us,” the man—Mark, he’d introduced himself as, and the child they each so cared for was called Maddie—had told him. His knuckles had been scrapped, his face bruised. He’d fought back. “Dragged her away, I didn’t see where.” 

His anger had been all in his voice. Humans, Godzilla knew, were expressive creatures. Not Mark, not that day on the boat near the base the humans had dedicated to him. He’d looked as empty as a walking corpse.

“They’re experimenting on her,” he’d snarled, fierce as any Titan. “Hurting her.” Fists clenching at his sides, the man had looked up at Godzilla without a trace of that fear during their first encounter some months beforehand. 

He had not needed to beg or demand that Godzilla find her. They were alike in that moment, synchronized in their rage and worry. A wordless oath passed between them, and both knew neither would rest until Maddie had been brought home. 

The bonds were strange things, and even when they were common, no one, not even the Titans, truly understood them. Even with the bond being incomplete, it had flared to life in other ways as a form of self-preservation. There could be no words shared between them; he could not sense her location to the exact degree. Whether she felt anything from him was a question he could not answer. 

But he felt her. He felt her fear and her pain. He felt her anger. He felt the knives slicing through flesh and muscle, the needles sliding beneath her skin, the bits and pieces of her they took for themselves. He felt that she could not stay awake, could not move, sometimes could not feel. 

Her hurt in all its forms bled into him from her, and he took it all willingly, gladly, for though he loathed the pain they caused her, it was all he had of her. And he would bear even the worst agony if it meant knowing his bonded child was still alive.

Godzilla searched endlessly. His head ached near constantly, half from her pain, half from the incomplete, straining bond. But it was nothing compared to the pain of his heart. He pushed through her worst days, when every inch of her was like an open wound. Rather than slow him down, the echoes of her suffering fueled him in his determination and fury both. 

He accepted assistance from Mark and the other humans of that base, and they passed information along to him, as he could act when they often could not. He prowled along coastlines, waded into the wilderness, and loomed over cities. 

Waiting. Watching. One did not become King of all his kindred by being impatient or foolhardy. 

Until finally—a flicker of a familiar scent. 

He tracked it meticulously, catching it more strongly at last on one of the flying machines. His star-fire roared inside him, eager to be used, but for this, he refrained. Instead, he caught the entire machine in his jaw—it seemed empty, for he heard no screams from inside—and he dragged it back to the water base. 

Track it, he tried to tell Mark, father of his bonded child, with his eyes. Tell me where it came from. 

Mark could not feel his daughter’s pain the way Godzilla did, not truly. But he was not unaffected by her absence, and the worsening dark circles beneath his weary eyes were telling. The way he held himself was telling.

Mark’s focus drifted down from Godzilla to the mangled mess of flying machine. Turning to one of his fellows, he asked, with a rasp of tension in his voice, “Can you find out where this one’s been in the last week?” 

“We sure as hell can,” the white-haired human said. 

• • •

She didn’t notice the rumbles at first. Caught in that awful drugged-induced in-between state of awareness, she wasn’t really able to notice much. Hallucinations had set in ages and ages ago, and on her worst days, she couldn’t even trust if the people harvesting bits of her body in the name of science were real. 

When her entire bed quaked and the lights flickered, she fought to open her eyes fully. 

Somewhere else in the facility, an alarm began blaring. A familiar, wonderful roar gouged through the silence. A tug deep in her chest brought with it a wave of clarity. 

Around the tube in her mouth, Maddie grinned. 

Chapter Text

The pain had been off and on for a day or so now, nothing more than a persistent bit of heartburn. Honestly, Mark was too damn busy for it to be anything else. None of his usual tricks were helping, but it would pass. 

He cleared his throat against the discomfort, feeling unusually anxious. “Maddie!” he called. “Mothra’s on her way up, you ready to go?” 

“Just one sec!” 

Mark finished getting his papers in order, tucked away into his bag. His heartbeat tripped, skipped, doubled. He frowned, a dizzy spell leaving him leaning against the edge of the kitchen island.

Maddie darted out of her room, still tugging the zipper of her duffle closed. “I’m not late,” she declared. 

He chuckled, ending on a thready cough. “You’re fine, kiddo.” 

“I know, I know, but still, I—” Her words snapped to a stop as she dropped the duffle and turned to face him. “Are you okay?” 

“Just feeling a little off, is all. Perks of getting old.” 

“You look like hell, Dad.” 

“You’re so kind to your old man, Mads. C’mere, I need a good long hug before I don’t see you for a week.” 

She wrapped her arms around him tight and rested her head on his shoulder. He closed his eyes; she was getting taller. The day would come, sooner than he’d ever be okay with, when she wouldn’t fit tucked beneath his chin anymore. And he’d already missed so many years, so many hugs. 

“Your heart’s racing, Dad,” Maddie whispered. 

It was. And he wasn’t too happy with the state of his breathing either. He was all but panting. 

Mark knuckled his chest as Maddie leaned back. “Hurts—hurts a bit more now. I don’t—”

A blur. Darkness. Knees buckling. A sharp gasp, not his own, ringing in his ears. Hands, a body, breaking his fall. 

“Dad!” 

• • •

Mark knew he was in a hospital before he even opened his eyes. He wasn’t usually the patient—not when he had a teenage daughter who delighted in giving him gray hair—but he recognized the sound and smell. The bed was about as uncomfortable as Maddie had always complained. 

He forced his eyes open, feeling like he hadn’t slept in weeks.

The room was mostly dark, lit only by the little flashing lights and buttons on the machines scattered around his bed. His nose tickled from a nasal cannula. Other than a general faint ache, there was no obvious pain, but that could’ve been thanks to whatever they were giving him in that IV. 

He might have still been a bit out of it because it took him a long minute or two of blinking at his surroundings to realize the two blue lights to his right were eyes. 

Godzilla seemed to have been waiting for him to notice. In the dim light, he raised an eyebrow, but otherwise didn’t look terribly amused. 

Slumped in the chair at his side was Maddie, sound asleep. Her head was leaned up against Godzilla’s arm, and she looked about as tired and drawn as Mark felt. 

“Doc,” Godzilla whispered with a little nod. 

He worked his dry mouth. “Wha’ happened?” Mark croaked. 

“You don’t remember?” 

Squinting, Mark absently reached up to rub at his chest. Godzilla made a sharp noise, shifting like he wanted to get up, but freezing before he could dislodge Maddie. Mark froze, and a vague memory of crushing pain came back to him. His arm thumped back to the mattress, and Godzilla relaxed. 

“Not really,” he admitted. “I… something with my lungs? I was having trouble breathing, I think.” 

“Well,” Godzilla said. “Let’s just say you’re not allowed to make jokes about any of us giving you a heart attack anymore.” 

It took a too long moment for Mark’s drowsy brain to follow along. “No,” he rasped. “No, no, you are not telling me I had a heart attack.” 

“Sorry, Doc. But you got the fancy tube thing in your heart to prove it—an ‘s’ somethin’ or other.” 

“A stent? Hell.” Mark dragged his hand down his face, and his chest twinged. He groaned, eyes scrunching up. 

“Yeah. Might have a cracked rib or two. CPR’s not real kind on you humans, huh?” 

“Tell me Maddie isn’t the one—”

Godzilla shook his head. “Mothra.” 

“Thank god.” He eyed his daughter. “She doesn’t look too good.” 

“It’s been a long few days. Scared us all real bad.” He had his arm around her back, keeping her from tipping or sliding away, and he gently rubbed her arm. “This is a rare calm spell. Kiddo keeps having nightmares—sounds like you got as far as complaining about the pain, breathin’ real heavy, before just about keeling over. That’s about when the heart attack was joined by cardiac arrest.” He tilted his head. “You want me to wake her—”

“No, not if, not if she’s not sleeping well. Let her rest.” Guilt lodged like a stone in his stomach. First nightmares of Andrew’s death, then Emma’s. He supposed he rounded out the full set now.

“You should rest too, Doc. We’re watchin’ out for her. And you.” He cracked a humorless grin. “Monarch’s got this whole wing on lockdown. Congrats on bein’ the second ever human to have a couple’a Titan guards at your door.” 

“It was a heart attack, not a murder attempt.” 

“Still,” Godzilla said pleasantly and with fangs. 

“If you make a bunch of paperwork that I have to deal with—”

“A couple’a saints like us? Never.” He leaned forward slightly, blue eyes flaring. “Sleep, Doc. I’ll wake you once she’s up.” 

“Okay,” Mark murmured. “Okay, I—thank you.”