reflectedlight | 🌙 Inbox - Marc Spector's Dead Drop

He grimaces, and pulls in a rough breath.

"I share -"

Ugh. Ugh. This gets easier every time, and the fact that he's about to lie about the worst of it helps, but it still sucks.

Confess now and control the information, or hide it and he'll just find Steven with the item. Okay. Easy. Protect Steven, always, even if it feels awful. What Marc feels is not fucking important.

"I share the body I'm in with a Warden, and I'm mostly here to make sure he gets through this. That's what I'm for."

He folds his arms again. Okay. Not a lover. That's.. a weird concept. First he's heard of. He knows prophets, he knows of possessions, he knows of a legend; Ezra the Mad who became part of the creature he hunted. But he's also met the ... sane part of Ezra. If that's who or what it was who was guarding gates Kylar will never see again.

He has questions. It's not time for them yet.

"So he's your daywalker." He's making sure he understands. "And your his.. personal bodyguard. Am I getting that right?" Sounds like magic. He hates that.

We are so going to lean into it being magic.

"Yeah. He's his own ...thing. He doesn't know I'm here, and I want to keep it that way."

Tired shrug.

"I can't control what I am, but I've had years to go through the denial, the anger, all that crap. He hasn't. He's a ...civilian, he's sheltered. I just want a few hours after he goes to sleep, the rest he gets to run around, and that's good for me right now.

Can't pull all-nighters, though. The body's gotta get sleep some time. Sorry."

He's still not sure what to make of this. The dancer makes more sense. Protect the other when you can't be... around. How does that work? Never mind. It's not his business.

"All right, so check in with me on nights when you can get enough sleep. Just tell me when. Once a week, less if the barge loses its shit. If you don't like it, give me a counteroffer. I can't do nothing."

"No, that works. I can meet with you whenever he's out. And I'm not asking you to buzz off, just telling you what I'm up against.

I want to graduate. It's gonna be hard, but I do want to. Have to. He's a Warden, but we are actually, uh, really dead.

Do you want to come spar in here or something a couple times a week? That's like a routine."

He mulls that over a moment. He's not supposed to spar for fun. But that was years ago and that was with goody nobles who don't learn real fighting. And.. it's routine. More or less.

"Yeah, sure. We can do that even after, you know. Once the temp's done."

Which reminds him, he breathes through his nose, face frowning inward.

"You gonna explain this to every temp you get? What's the plan?"

"I'll be honest, when the Admiral asked me I didn't know temps were a thing and I kinda fucked up."

Hmhmnn.

There's a distance here that Marc actively hates. Whatever was comfortable has fled the room.

"You do still know me, y'know. What I like, what I do, what my job is - that was all true. It used to be mostly me, back then. Now it's mostly him, and I guess I owe him that much, 'cause I had my own stuff going on for ages and he had nothin'."

He rubs at his temples, he's thinking and that's hard. Give him something to stab and his brain knows precisely the angle and strength needed to kill or let live, he can think it through in less than an instant. But this? Ugh. This is why Momma K gave him a partner, he knows. Even if his partner was barely any better at the information side than he was.

"I don't care if you lied to me, for the record. Or if you're lying now, for that matter. I'm not going to take offense." He could. "I get why lies are needed. Protection, right? But—" He sighs, opens his hands figuring out the best approach but they all suck.

"You gotta understand that I'm not your enemy. I'm not asking you to trust me. Don't. That's the worst mistake you could make. But I can at least respect secrets." All to say, don't fuck him over with this. He's already had to fight eight dumb wardens over Verso sleeping for three days and he's so done with the politics here.

"You wanna talk about him, tell me his name, let me help you keep him.. I don't know. Ignorant? Sure, I'll do it." He's done worse. "You don't wanna talk about it then don't. But I can't help you, either of you, unless you let me."

"Here," he says as he holds out his right hand and a black metal ball appears into the palm of his hand. It's an eye for an eye. "This is my warden item." The ball seems to form a nondescriptive face before winking at Marc then seeping back into Kylar's skin like it was never there to begin with. "Now we're even."

"I trust you to be who I'm pretty sure you are," Marc says. He almost sounds tired. "You could tell people, but you wouldn't do it lightly, or for fun, or just to show you've got power over somebody else. You'd hurt people, but - not because you're a sadist. And if I'm wrong about you ... that's on me, at this point.

You already know my ... I dunno, daywalker. Sure. He's Steven Grant. He talked to you after the thing with your last guy, because he's -" BIG SIGH. "got a big heart, and he's in a poetry book club with the French guy's kid sister.

We're ..." completely opposite people. "Different.

But I was backseating for that shit with the drunk guy, and I'm not going to put you through that shit again. Like I said, I think your deal's more important than me, I want you to get it. I'm a ... redeemable person, my life's just weird. And I don't wanna be your enemy."

Most of that subject falls out of his head when there's suddenly winking metal, though.

Marc's head doesn't go to separate being though which, for him is kind of ironic? He assumes it Kylar making shapes in whatever material his hand is made of like ... damn, what was that x-gene terrorist guy that was famous ten or so years ago, the one that could control metal. Magnet man?

"That's your, uh, Talent? The prosthetic that's not a prosthetic."

"Steven? Really?" Well, that explains the protection earnestness. Survival of the fittest would crush that man, this man? Kylar's pretty certain. He can pick up that much from a passing conversation. "Different, yeah. Point taken." Is that best he can offer for that.

He gives another shrug. "No, it's not my Talent. I'll give you two more questions about it if you want them. In exchange, can I ask two more on you and Steven?" Eye for an eye, balance continues. "If either asks a question we don't like, we pass. Should've picked a better question." He gestures between them for the 'we'.

Marc has totally not been counting who asked what how many times.

"If you want to do that. Or you could just ask whatever you want to ask and if I don't want to answer I won't. Like I said, I trust you to be who you are."

Another thing he trusts: Kylar's a lot like Marc, in that he's just straightforward. There's no like, webs of implications here, or subterfuge, or chess playing. Most secrets for him, if Marc had to guess, are kept because they'd get you directly killed, or because they're a way someone else could beat you in a fight.

Marc's shit is just ... sadder than that. It's a secret because of shame. Lots of kinds of shame. There's ways to ruin somebody that hurt more and hurt for longer than just killing them.

"Let's walk, I gotta -"

He indulges in on what Steven would be a stim or a fidget, but on Marc has been suppressed as just another discomfort to deal with - just a little flex in his hands. I'm restless. Tension makes him not want to sit still.

"Is it something I gotta worry about besides the no eye contact thing? Keeping in mind - I also gotta protect a guy who doesn't know how to fight."

"Huh, okay." He can't really argue that.

"You wanted sunlight, daylight, right? Let's actually use this thing. Pick a place, I don't care." He gestures around them before the hands go back into the pockets. He's seen worse fidgeting even if this just gets a glance. His master used to pop garlic cloves like they were mints any time he got anxious. You could smell the man coming, breathing down your back, it wouldn't change anything though. You'd already be as good as dead. Imagine, garlic breath being the last thing you smelled in the world.

"No, it doesn't work that way. It's not the threat, I am. Well, if anything were. If we're sparring, I won't have it with me. But it's still.." How can he explain it. "With me. Just not on me." Does any of that make sense? No? Too bad, onto his question.

"I'm guessing Steven's technically not aware we're talking right now, yeah? And if he's around then you aren't aware?"

Marc leans into the panel, puts in Lagos, in the 2020s, nice weather. Gorgeous place. And nice place to freerun, generally, which is what Marc likes to do when his brain is loud.

"With you, just not on you," Marc repeats. Okay. So there's some kind of ... thing he can call for help, and that's part of it.

They step out and onto a tin rooftop into a vibrant urban center dotted with lagoons under a vast, perfectly clear sky. It's weirdly quiet without the people and traffic but Marc relaxes a fraction anyway just from being un-trapped. He can't actually just hop a plane and get the fuck out of here, but he can pretend for a minute.

Never been here. Heard the nightlife's nuts, though, mostly because that was Duchamp's thing. God, Marc hasn't talked to that guy in years.

"Steven's asleep. He goes to sleep around 22:00, I run around for a few hours until I get worn out just so I don't go nuts, then we both sleep. I'm the one that knows we're both here, so I'm always in the body's eyes and ears. That's how I can jump in if shit hits the fan for him."

Marc gives one of those millimeter smirks. "With the body, just not on the body."

The place is.. nice. He hasn't seen something like it before, decides he never will just as quickly as the awe hit him. His focus doesn't stray from Marc for more than two seconds, he knows better than to get distracted.

"So if I need you—Steven needs you—but you don't know it, see it, something. What do I do to get you..." Vague gestures outward. "Awake? Swap... in." Out? He's trying. Help. "If he can't know about you then how is that gonna work?"

"Without letting Steven know."

Marc grimaces. Hm. Good question, also hard.

"I call it being in the body, I've seen other people who are like me call it being up front. Fronting. Before ... about this year, I could pull Steven out of the body any time I needed to. He'd just faint. I don't know what it looked like from the outside."

Marc ambles off down a gable to hop to the next roof.

"I can't do it any more. Pull him out of the body when he's awake, I mean. If I knew what the hell changed, I'd tell you. No kidding, try knocking him out if it's an emergency and you need me right on the spot. Try not to concuss the body, but - emergencies are emergencies.

If you don't need me right then, I got a dead drop above in a ceiling panel. You ever used a dead drop?"

Knock him out without a concussion sounds easy but it means also calculating how the body hits the ground. If.. it hits the ground. Is it immediate? He drags a hand down his face. How the fuck is this guy supposed to do this conversation with every damned temp he gets?

He ambles after him, hands still in his pockets. He tries not to wear the same grimace and he tries not to show any of his reservations. Steven is going to hate him by the sounds of it. Oh, the things you do. He said Marc leads, he meant it. One more person hating him isn't so bad. "Yeah, I'm familiar. You check it regularly?"

"Every night. Look, it's fine. I've been doing this for decades, it's a pain in the ass but it's what I do."

He hops to the next roof, clambers on small handholds up the difference in height.

"Can I ask my other question about your thing? And don't be a smartass and say that counts as my question, you know what I mean."

"Oh no... you're onto me." He feigns. If he doesn't make a joke he'll go insane by this point. He makes the same hop, cheating with his Talent to get up with some stability. He doesn't think about it. It just happens.

"I reserve the right to pass, just saying. But go on, what is it?"

"What's gonna happen if you come clean? Worst case scenario, what are we talking?"

Now, that's a thought. What could happen if he was just.. honest about it all?

"Oh, you know, just.. worlds ending. Mine and whatever wrong ear hears about it." Is he exaggerating? It's hard to tell.

"You know," a hand leaves his pocket to gesture along as he speaks. "Back home there are legends about it. What I am, what I can do. I flaunt it to the right audience as a spectacle, use it to terrify and torment others. Most kingdoms know of me, even if they don't know my face. Fear, reverence, awe. Jealousy. Envy. But here?" You'd think he'd gesture with a hand but he taps his foot instead, it clangs on the tin.

"Here, there's too many variables. Powers I've never seen from people, Talent I can't explain or grasp. If! If they're even people at all. Back home, I'm safe. I can do what I want and I know my limits. I know all the possible threats, I can steer clear, be one step ahead. But I can't trust what I don't know and what I can't understand and that's this entire fucking place."

A 'go ahead' gesture, but it's just directed toward Marc. "No offense. It's not you exactly. You need to keep Steven safe, I need to keep this safe. I've seen what happens when these things fall into the wrong hands. Saved a world once, it gets old after the first time." And he just looks tired even by saying it and he regrets that much immediately. Everyone lost something with Black Barrow, some sanity, some hair, some their lives. Kylar doesn't know the extent of what's wrong with him but he can feel himself withering somehow despite it. His jaw sets a bit but there's an easier smile.

"If you actually get stuck with me, I'll consider talking about it. Deal?" He'll offer a hand to shake on it. Consider not.. guaranteed but maybe it's something.

What.

Marc shakes his hand, but looks baffled.

"I mean, look. You got your right to privacy, and if it's not going to hurt me or Steven, that's all I really need, the rest is yours to... do what you want with. Tell me or don't, it's fine. And it sounds like you got it handled just not talking about it, unlike my shitshow.

You're famous at home?"

Handled, yeah. Sure. You can call it that. Except John could see right through him. Even talk to it without Kylar having any hope of blocking him or preventing it. It was like he was transparent. It's unnerving and he can't decide if John's an enemy with a kind smile or not.

Famous though? Did he say that? "What? You think someone like me is born with a title like Baron?" He thought this was fairly obvious, but maybe not. Or maybe Marc thought he was lying about the Baron and 'my Lord' comment. "Honestly, I'm more surprised you aren't famous, Moon Knight. Hard to get a title and not have some stories attached to it."

"Mighta been a thing where you kill a Baron and you get their stuff, how should I know? Mighta been a - a present, for saving some princess from bandits. I didn't think you were an Avenger or something."

Marc doesn't know how Barony works, maybe it's like Mega Man.

"Oh, that. There've been a bunch of Moon Knights. Khonshu just gives whoever's working for him the title. People don't like, recognize me, though. Which is good, because the avatar of Vengeance thing comes with basically no perks beyond combat stuff, and I can still get arrested."

"Uhh.. High King, actually." Not that it matters, he doesn't get the kids back that title won't be lasting much longer. Not that that is any kind of priority. He hasn't done a damned Baron like thing since he actually earned the title.

He'll fold his arms. "You don't say, doesn't sound so different. Minus your... weird debt to the guy. Don't suppose you could keep the combat stuff but get rid of the asshole holding that debt over your head, huh?"

He tilts his head, just curious.

"Wait. You've been arrested? As in.. prison?"

"I mean, they don't recognize Moon Knight, either. I don't save the world, I just go after small targets that Khonshu picks out."

Seriously, he's not killing like, dark lords or Thanos or anything, mostly just random assholes.

"Doubt it, the perks are from summoning his stupid ceremonial armor. I'd give it up if he'd leave me alone- and, no, not yet, but that's not because the international police aren't trying. Mercenary work isn't legal."

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