Chapter Text
Marcus couldn’t tell who was the prouder parent. Matthew’s chest swelled with pride at the sight of his son embarking on yet another educational journey—so much so that he had volunteered to teach one of the introductory science courses Marcus would be taking that fall. Not to be outdone, Diana practically glowed with delight when Marcus announced his plans to double major this time around, one of those majors being history. If Marcus had hoped for a subdued reaction, he was sorely mistaken. His parents’ pride was almost embarrassingly obvious.
The family returned to New Haven a few weeks before the fall semester was set to begin. In that time, Matthew and Diana transformed into the most enthusiastic freshman parents imaginable. Never mind that Marcus had attended university at least a dozen times or that both his parents were Yale faculty now, and in Matthew’s case, an alum.
They descended on the campus bookstore like it was their first time, snapping up far too much Yale Mom and Yale Dad merchandise. Marcus had cringed at the sight of Diana in a bright Yale Mom sweatshirt and his father toting a Yale Dad coffee mug, but he couldn’t really complain. Their enthusiasm was endearing in its own way.
Matthew, who hated shopping more than almost any activity on earth, had tapped out midway. With a longsuffering sigh of relief, he’d waved Diana and Marcus onward to continue the next shopping adventure, offering to pick up the twins from daycare instead.
Shopping with Diana was always far more fun than shopping with Matthew, anyway. His father’s idea of a successful shopping trip was to grab the first acceptable option and be done in twenty minutes flat. Diana, on the other hand, didn’t second-guess every item Marcus tossed in the cart, nor did she mind taking the time to compare different styles of notebooks.
Marcus found himself actually enjoying the experience of picking out supplies with his mother. When Diana cheerfully paid for his new backpack and a rainbow of color-coded binders, Marcus realized this was the most normal he had ever felt while starting a new college program.
Of course, it wasn’t completely normal. Some accommodations had to be made for Marcus’s unique circumstances. For one, his parents insisted he live at home rather than in a dorm. (“How would you explain your dining and sleeping habits to a roommate?” Diana had pointed out sensibly.) That also meant he wouldn’t be frequenting the dining hall with other students—unsurprisingly, blood wasn’t on any of the campus menus. But aside from those concessions, he was as normal as a nearly three-hundred-year-old freshman could be.
The evening before classes began, the three of them sat down together to discuss how things would work for the family. Matthew and Diana had been adamant: in class, Marcus was to treat them as he would any other professors, and they in turn would treat him like any other student. No special treatment, no familiar familial banter on campus. Marcus had agreed, albeit with a roll of his eyes, but their insistence on formality was both touching and a tad overcautious.
By the time classes began on Wednesday, Marcus felt as prepared as any student, perhaps even a bit overprepared, given his parents’ enthusiasm. His very first class at Yale was, unsurprisingly, Dr. Matthew Clairmont’s introductory Biochemistry and Biophysics lecture. Father or not, Matthew was a renowned scientist who didn’t typically teach undergrad classes, so his introductory course was packed with students filling one of Yale’s large auditorium-style lecture halls.
Marcus slipped into a seat a few rows from the front in the massive lecture hall. He recognized a few faces from orientation events, but he kept to himself, unfolding his laptop and pretending to review the syllabus that had been emailed out. In truth, he already knew this material backward and forward. He had lived through the discovery of many of these scientific principles, after all. Still, he kept a neutral, attentive expression as Matthew stepped up to the podium at the front.
Matthew began greeting the class and distributing paper copies of the syllabus. If he felt any fatherly pride at seeing Marcus sitting there, he gave no outward sign.
“Good morning, everyone. I’m Dr. Clairmont,” Matthew began, his tone brisk and academic. He introduced the course, launched into the syllabus overview, and soon enough was giving the first lecture of the semester on basic scientific methodologies. Marcus dutifully opened a note taking document—then quickly navigated to a solitaire game once he was confident no one was watching too closely. He’d heard all this hundreds of times before.
Matthew’s lecture was polished and engaging. By any objective measure Marcus would have to give his father high marks as a professor, but none of it was new to Marcus. He kept half an ear on the content and half on his game. Ninety minutes later, class concluded with a reading assignment and a reminder to complete the first problem set by next week. Marcus snapped his laptop shut, already rising to join the exodus of students, when he felt his phone buzz in his pocket.
Marcus fished it out and couldn’t suppress a grin at the sender: Dad. Matthew must have sent it the moment class ended. Marcus unlocked his phone to read the message: Pay attention in class. If I catch you playing solitaire in my class again, you’ll be playing it standing up.
Trust Matthew to notice his son’s wandering attention even in a hall of three hundred students. With a shake of his head, Marcus tucked the phone away. Busted, he thought, not without a little amusement.
The rest of his Wednesday classes passed without incident. They were mostly introductory courses to fulfill general science requirements, and Marcus found them bland if not outright dull. It was hard to muster enthusiasm for material he could recite by heart or that felt painfully obvious after his decades of real-world experience. Still, he dutifully attended, took cursory notes, and made sure not to let his mind wander too obviously.
Thursday promised at least something more engaging. Marcus’s schedule on Tuesdays and Thursdays included two history courses for his second major, and he actually looked forward to those. History had always fascinated him, and even though he had lived through more historical events than any of his professors, he knew there were countless perspectives and details he could still learn.
That morning, Marcus attended a large European History lecture taught by a Professor Adler. Later that day came the class Marcus simultaneously looked forward to and dreaded: Dr. Diana Bishop’s history seminar. Unlike Matthew’s massive lecture, Diana’s class was a smaller course with only about thirty students. Marcus slipped into a seat toward the back, trying not to draw attention to himself. It was harder to fade into the background with so few people, but he was determined to be treated like any other student.
He could feel Diana’s gaze brush over him briefly before she began class. True to her word, she treated him just like the others: taking attendance (she called him “Marcus Bishop-Clairmont” without so much as a wink), reviewing the syllabus, and diving into an enthusiastic discussion about Isaac Newton’s lesser-known alchemical experiments. Marcus found himself actually paying attention; this was new material to him, and Diana was a naturally captivating teacher, weaving stories and context into the dry facts.
Diana did her best to let Marcus just be another student in her class. She posed questions to the room, and when Marcus raised his hand along with the others, she neither favored nor ignored him, simply nodding when he offered a thoughtful answer. If anything, she was a touch more formal with him than she was with the other freshmen, careful to maintain that boundary. Marcus understood why, and he appreciated it.
Still, the whole experience was surreal. It took a lot of restraint not to grin at the absurdity of it. But Marcus managed, and by the end of the Thursday session he walked out of Diana’s classroom feeling more intellectually stimulated than he had in other classes that week.
For the first few weeks, college life proceeded fairly smoothly. Marcus settled into a routine of classes, studying, and commuting between campus and home. Matthew and Diana, true to their word, treated him like any other student on campus, and at home they tried to give him a bit more independence than they had during the tumultuous year before. At first, Marcus welcomed the freedom and normalcy. But as September wore on, a strange restlessness began to gnaw at him. Something about this normal college experience felt off-kilter.
At home, Matthew and Diana would ask about his day over dinner—well, Diana’s and the twins’ dinner; Marcus and Matthew usually just sat with a glass of wine or a warmed-up mug of blood. Conversation was polite and supportive. Everything seemed almost too perfect and calm.
Marcus realized that for all his parents’ determination to treat him like a regular student, he missed the way they used to act as his parents. Initially, their hands off approach seemed like a relief. Who wouldn’t want lenient parents after centuries of a sometimes strained relationship with his overbearing, controlling father? Yet Marcus found himself testing them, almost unconsciously, in small ways.
He left empty wine and julep glasses in the sink instead of putting them in the dishwasher. He “forgot” to do a couple of his household chores. Once or twice, he pointedly skipped family dinner, complaining that it wasn’t fair he had to sit through meals when he couldn’t even taste the food.
In the past, any one of those minor rebellions would have earned him a smack, a sharp reprimand, or at the very least a pointed look from Matthew warning him to straighten up. Now, his father barely reacted beyond a slight narrowing of the eyes, and Diana would just sigh and let it go.
For reasons he couldn’t quite articulate, Marcus found himself missing the old dynamic he had always had with Matthew—the one where his father would chastise him for sloppiness or push him to be better, where Diana would fuss and mediate if needed. Lately, they were so focused on treating him like “any other student” that at home they almost seemed to tiptoe around him, too. They gave him space. They were cordial. And it was driving Marcus quietly up the wall.
The more Matthew and Diana acted as if Marcus were just an independent adult who had everything under control, the more Marcus felt something nagging at him. It was an odd, paradoxical longing. He had chafed under Matthew’s strict rules in the past, and yet the absence of that strictness now left him unsettled. Over the decades (and especially during the past year), Marcus had come to realize that beneath all of Matthew’s stern lectures and heavy hand was a profound sense of care. The occasional overbearing parenting was a reminder that he was loved and looked after.
Marcus would never admit it out loud, but a part of him wanted them to push back, to set a boundary, to let him know exactly where the line was.