fiction | Part of the journey is the end

5. Asylum

Steven and Marc continued screaming at Taweret. Cut to Marc, now with a bruised face, screaming in Dr. Harrow's office.

"Why is his face bruised?" Layla questioned.

"Where'd Taweret go?" Marc asked. He stiffened. "Is she real?"

She's very real, Khonshu said.

Thor and Loki nodded. "She's real, Thor and I have met her," said Loki.

Harrow told Marc that he didn't shoot him, but his mind was oscillating between sense and nonsense.

Marc already knew that so he didn't need to hear it from Harrow too, even if he wasn't actually Harrow.

He elaborated that he was supposedly switching between the 'reality' that he was a patient in Putnam Psychiatric Hospital in Chicago and a fantasy where he was a superhero.

"I thought this was the Duat. Why is Harrow still there?" Marc asked. He didn't like that the psych ward was in Chicago, he hadn't gone back there in a long time.

The Avengers didn't know either.

Marc accused Dr. Harrow of not really being a doctor, and Harrow asked if that was why he kept starting imaginary fights in the hospital.

"Imaginary fights? I'm not going to believe a single word that he says," said Steve.

He explained that, according to Marc, he was somewhere oddly reminiscent of the office, except he was in Egypt and that he was with a talking hippopotamus.

"Taweret is real!" Loki said.

"We're friends with a talking tree and raccoon so a talking hippopotamus isn't that big of a deal. Plus, Khonshu's a talking bird skeleton," said Natasha.

Marc and Layla blinked. Talking tree and raccoon? Were the Avengers okay?

"Do you think that is sense or nonsense?" Harrow asked. "Nonsense?" Marc answered.

"Not that nonsensical, honestly," said Stephen.

Harrow said he found this encouraging, how Marc's struggling mind would build a shelter for different aspects of himself from his most traumatic memories.

Marc wasn't about to argue that his mind was struggling, but Harrow wasn't entirely wrong since his mind created Steven to cope with what his mother was doing to him.

He gave examples such as a castle, maze, or library, and Marc added a psychiatric ward, determining that the ward he was in was an organizing principle.

"It's not an organizing principle, it's the Duat!" Thor insisted. "Well, the Duat does take the shape of the psych ward for him so maybe an organizing principle has some truth to it."

Harrow was interested in Taweret who broke down the walls between him and Steven so they could finally understand what Marc was talking about when he mentioned a little boy in a previous session.

Marc suddenly felt like he couldn't breathe. A little boy? It couldn't be! He never spoke about his brother's death and even if he did, why would he be opening up about it to Arthur Harrow, of all people? He didn't care that Not-Harrow was a psychiatrist, he wasn't real.

"I don't think Taweret broke down the walls between Marc and Steven, she's real. Not-Harrow isn't real," said Wong.

"I thought Marc and Steven were in the Duat so I don't know why we're seeing Harrow again," said Carol.