You don't have to hurt me to love me | Moon Knight

A promise

- 2 weeks later-

Marc has been avoiding you for almost 2 and a half months. Or at least he was trying to.

You have caught him slipping the past few weeks.

He would roll into bed after returning from an exhausting mission, his body and clothes wet from the shower he took to clean out the grime, sweat, and blood. Cuddling into your sleeping body as he slept off the nerves and the exhaustion, he would exhale your name as if it was a prayer. A prayer to thank god that you were safe and back in his arms. 

What he didn't know was that you could never sleep unless he was safely home, always lying in bed waiting for your boys to return home and into your arms. Marc would often front during nights and after dangerous missions, Steven tucked in a safe corner inside his mind. 

And as much as he wanted to, there were nights were he couldn't stay away from you any longer, holding you close to him, to anchor him to reality as he sailed away into dreamland.

The first time , you weren't sure if you had heard his voice calling out for you, waking you in your sleep.

When you had turned around, Steven's relaxed face was snoring softly as he held you tightly against his body.

You shook your head, blaming your Marc-deprived brain and heart for waking you up.

Reaching up to brush his beautiful curls you pressed a gentle kiss on his temple, leading him to release a sigh that tickled your nose.

You promised that night to work on yourself, to deal with your emotions better to lessen the burden you were placing on Steven's shoulders.

As the days rolled past you, you started to gain better control over your emotions, helping Steven with his book and researching more on new topics to support his claims. He had started to relax slowly, but every night Marc cuddled into you, it took everything inside of you to not turn around and have a conversation about this with him.

You allowed yourself the small moments of bliss that filled the hole inside of your chest, settling in against his warmth and thanking all the gods out there that protected your boys every night. 

Which brings you to today morning. After a particularly rough night, you woke up leisurely, looking around to find Steven sipping his coffee and working on his book on Egyptian Mythology, nerdy glasses resting on his nose. 

You padded up behind him, failing to surprise him as he titled his head adorably like a puppy and turned around to find you, stance like that of a tiny lioness who was about to attack.

"Come here, kitten," He said gently, pulling you closer to himself.

You stiffened under his grasp, Marc's voice flowing over your body like hot lava. You take a few steps back just as Steven came back into control.

You bit your lip, stifling your tears to keep the promise you made to yourself all those nights ago, moving away from Steven's open arms that fell lightly onto his lap when you turned around. Hearing Marc in a sleepy state that you could chalk up to dreams vs dealing with him bright and early in the morning where your awareness was high, were two different things. Rushing into the bathroom, you quickly turned on the shower, letting the warm water calm you down. Your heart was beating out of your chest, his voice calling you kitten looping around your mind and filling the hole that his absence had left behind.

As the water slowed down your rapidly beating heart, you took into account the things that happened the day he left you.

The day Steven read the quote from Nefertari's tomb. A quote that felt like a confession, that was a confession, at least when it came to Steven.

With Marc though, it must've triggered something he had bottled up, which had led to avoiding you the moment the confession came to the surface.

When you look at Steven and Marc from the outside, at a glance it seems like Steven was the sensitive one whereas Marc was the protector. The reality was quite literally the opposite.

Ever since they returned from the dead, Steven grew more protective of Marc, caring for his needs and helping him through the things that kept him up at night.

They were opening up to you slowly, lowering the barriers they had raised, higher and thicker, ever since Layla had passed away from a sudden aneurysm during one of their missions.

It had broken the boys down to the point where they had decided to just end their lives, snuffing out the pain that ran instead of blood in their veins. It was Taweret's voice through Layla, a parting gift that the avatar had asked of her god, that had let them know that she had passed the test and was now reunited with her father in the Field of Reeds. 

She had asked them to stay together and stay strong, promising that they would meet again in the fields, surrounded by all those that they loved.

A promise borne out of love and sealed with a kiss, Steven slowly helped Marc just as Marc helped Steven move through this difficult phase of life.

At the end of which you had come into their lives... an over-excited fan of Steven's work, who had crashed into him spilling cold coffee all over his white suit.