Content Warning: mentions of injuries/blood, also manslaughter
Summary: You and Marc arrive home after your mission-gone-awry in Budapest. Neither he nor Steven are up to speed on your introduction to Jake, and you're desperate to learn more about him in a setting where your life isn't at stake.
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You had both slept on the flight back to London, beaten and exhausted from your adventure and relieved to be out of harm's way. When the plane finally touched down, it was Marc who awoke to the sound of the captain's voice informing you of your arrival. He didn't think much of the gap in his memory-Steven was supposed to be controlling the body anyway-though he was confused by the new wounds on his skin, particularly the ones on his hands.
"I gave Steven the body so he could take care of it." He complained to you on the car ride home. "He was supposed to make sure we're well-rested, not find even more ways to get hurt."
You hadn't told him the truth about what happened at the hotel, nor about the fact that Steven hadn't fronted in nearly two days. There didn't seem to be a good way to explain the truth: that two men had tracked you to your room, that Jake Lockley had murdered them, and that he'd been fronting for hours afterward. The story you were running with was that Steven had dropped a mug of coffee at the breakfast bar of the hotel, not summoning the suit to heal himself because there were so many witnesses around. Marc was suspicious of how a mug could do so much damage, but he had no real reason to question you.
The truth would have to come out eventually, but you had no idea how to introduce it. How could you explain leaving two bodies in that hotel? That two men died at what was technically Marc's hand, but not? How could you explain that Steven was nowhere to be found and that you didn't know why or when he'd be back? Or that you probably could never show your faces in Budapest again?
There was something else you couldn't find words for, either. How could you explain that all of Marc's assumptions about Jake were wrong? That he was so much more valuable than the other two gave him credit for? How could you explain his surprising agility, his level-headedness, and his knowledge about making clean getaways? How could you explain his tenderness, the way he hummed in his sleep? The way he held you?
