dusterbishop

[dusterbishop]

i was let down it wasn’t the same.

summary. || you're the avatar of anubis and the biggest secret you harbor is your relationship with jake lockley and the daughter you share. when the scarab falls into the hands of a cult, you delve into the fray and hope you can balance saving the world with protecting your secrets.

pairing. || moon knight system x f!reader (established relationship with jake, marc and steven join in later)

count. || 6.8k

notes. || posted on ao3 here. you guys leave the sweetest comments, thank you!! i love sharing the drama with y'all. if you would like to be part of a taglist, just throw me a mention! or you can follow. :)

part one. || part two.

In true Marc Spector fashion, he tries to sneak out to Austria without you.

The advantages to having the favor of one of the Ennead is that you are adaptable to the whims of your mission. Moon Knight, whether its identity is being worn by Marc or Jake, is capable of flight in the winds of night, his silhouette cast far above like a crescent moon. It’s a convenient trick of Khonshu’s.

Your service to Anubis is convenient in terms of air travel, too, though the similarities are not lost on you. It’s an amusing thought as you summon your ceremonial armor. Eliana is safely tucked into bed, your sister is thoroughly distracted by her TV show, and you are standing on top of the roof, the night wind rustling the keffiyeh draped protectively over your mouth and nose. Your armor is simpler than Moon Knight’s, since battle is not your forte, but it serves to protect you from the elements all the same.

You shake away the lingering exhaustion and tap the emblem of Anubis on the chestplate of your armor, a quick two-time rhythm that echoes through your body with a shiver. The gleaming gold of your suit fades into the shimmering white sand of intangibility, weightlessness settling around you like a cloak.

Traveling in the wind under the moonlight, you let your body dissipate into a rush of sand. Vertigo tilts you into a spin cycle, pitching nausea in the pit of your stomach, but you keep your mind sharpened on your destination point. It’s much easier when you know his face as intimately as you know the back of your own hand.

Marc, to his credit, doesn’t flinch when you swirl into tangible being at his side. He has worked up into a dead-set pace through the airport terminal, a baseball cap pulled low over his furrowed brow and his travel bag hiked up defensively over one shoulder. His entire demeanor deflects attention like a shield. Don’t look at my face, don’t step into my way and distract me.

He’s very good at it.

Marc sighs when you fall into step alongside him. “Lockley.”

“Spector,” you hum. His strides are long and unfaltering, and for a moment you let that acknowledgement lay without further explanation while you keep pace. Avatars have enhanced endurance and strength while bolstered by their God’s favor, including you, not to mention that the life of a mercenary demands careful maintenance of your body’s upper limitations. You have gone for days on the run, never sleeping longer than an hour or so at a time, surviving off of nothing more than shallow sips of water and pure determination.

You are no stranger to pain, fear, anger, betrayal. Neither do you flinch in the face of Marc’s stony silence, though you would like to get through this mission without actively antagonizing him, either. The scarab is far more important than his prickly hesitance to let anyone close enough to help him.

“You could have flown,” you say.

His only answer is a grunt of annoyance. You’re inclined to believe that his ire is directed mostly to Khonshu’s stubbornness, but you figure he’s still irked to see you in London.

“There’s also the matter of my ticket,” you continue. That gets him to slow his rampant pace, and he reaches up to rub at his eyes with a harsh scrub of his palms. Nearly able to pity him, you add helpfully, “I brought my own props this time.”

“You are such a pain in the ass,” he finally says, dropping his hands. He gestures impatiently to you. “Boarding is in ten minutes. Hurry up.”

Despite the grumpiness, he follows in the wake of your steps as you duck into a secluded terminal lounge. You pass your purse for him to hold, ignoring the pang in your chest as he tucks it into the front pocket of his backpack with familiarity. He hangs back a few paces away, surreptitiously looking away as you crouch down and press your fingertips to the golden cuff on your wrist. The colors in the lounge fade to dull monochrome between one blink and the next, and you give a soft chuff to let Marc know you’re ready.

While you had changed, he had enough forethought to pull the harness and leash from your purse, and he looks briefly miffed as he reads the new lettering on them.

“Service animal,��� he reads, and you give him an open-maw smile. You’ve seen yourself in the mirror when you’ve changed forms. You’re small, less than fifteen pounds, and you have the distinct markings of a black-backed jackal. It should be impossible to pass as anything other than a wild animal, but Anubis’s favor must conceal you from skeptical witnesses, because you only get looks if you’re wandering around by yourself in public. Even then, the concern is mild, the sort of panic the sight of a stray dog would invoke while you visit other countries.

You’ve chosen to lean into it over the years. Jake likes to tell curious passersby that you’re a purebred German Shepherd. Marc, when pressed to pretend that you’re an animal and not the favored Avatar of Anubis, simply shrugs and calls you a mutt.

The designation as a service animal is new, but so is traveling via traditional air travel. He can’t expect you to wander onboard at the last minute without a passport, boarding pass, or luggage. So, in this case, you’ve become his luggage.

Despite his frown and the headshake of disbelief, he crouches down when you trot over to him and swiftly connects you to your harness. It’s a familiar ritual by now. With Marc, it’s almost easier than having to endure Jake’s jokes about enjoying being tied up. You do, but you don’t necessarily enjoy having to flirt with your husband while appearing as a twelve pound jackal. It kills the mood.

When Marc finally clips your leash on and straightens up, he takes in the sight of the bold SERVICE ANIMAL lettering and your dog-wide grin. You take the time to admire him, too. At this angle and in a tint of monochrome, the furrow of his brow is stark against the darkness beneath his eyes. He looks exhausted. The body itself is exhausted, running ragged with the lives of three people crammed into one skull, of which none of them try to coexist easily with another. Marc can act as protective of Steven as he likes, but it’s no life to be isolated by Moon Knight’s midnight rendezvous and stuck in a dead-end job selling plushies.

Not that you’re any better, not when it comes to secrets.

“Oh, my God,” he mutters at you. “You look ridiculous.”

You can’t speak, but you snap your teeth up at him in gentle rebuttal. Eliana thinks you’re cute as a jackal, at least. Wearing the form of a jackal is less about appearance and more about how to further serve your purpose as Anubis’s Avatar, but that doesn’t mean you’ll take an insult lightly.

Marc is fortunate that you’re currently stuck in animal vocal cords, and that the airport’s overhead speaker crackles with boarding information about your flight to Austria.

“Come on then,” Marc sighs. He gives you another look, and the faintest hint of amusement tinges the corner of his mouth. “You look great in neon orange, Lockley.”

You shake out your fur in agreement. You keep up a steady trot as the two of you navigate through the crowded terminal, basking in the muted atmosphere of your jackal senses. You aren't really a jackal in this form, despite appearances, and you don't have the same sharpened sensory facilities as one. The perk of this form is to allow you to seek out decay and carrion.

The airport terminal, mercifully, has a noticeable absence of dead things. It makes it easier for you to keep pace with Marc's long-legged stride. He always moves as if he's being chased, relentless and hunched in on himself. Steven minimizes his presence, too, but not like Marc does during a mission. You don't think you will ever stop marveling at the way the body changes with each alter, every movement tailored to their own unconscious intent. You're still in the process of learning Steven, but you know Jake and Marc well enough to see through their glamoured appearances.

"Here goes nothing," Marc mutters, and he shifts his shoulders back in a soldier's determined stance, tightening the slack on your leash. You adjust yourself to press your side firmly against his leg, willing your tail in droop in a neutral posture, your ears pricked up to catch the voices around you.

"Cute little pup," a boarding agent whispers to her coworker. "I love when we get service dogs, they're the sweetest things."

"If they're real," her coworker mutters back. He approaches you and Marc first, not bothering to deign you with a proper glance. He's taller than Marc, but there is none of the restrained grace in his stance that makes him appear as a threat. He also has an English accent that could rival Steven's for proper British poshness. "Good evening, sir."

"Evening," Marc says. He offers his passport, boarding pass, and the folded certificate you packed for your service animal prop. The agent studies his passport briefly, then reads through your service animal certification twice before handing it back to Marc with a gruff hum.

"Your service dog is cute," his coworker tells Marc, and she gives you an adoring smile. "I've never seen a little German Shepherd like that!"

You flash her a dog-wide smile, your tail swishing softly in acknowledgment. You hope Jake is close enough to the front to catch that little comment about your supposed breed. He loves to convince people that you're actually a full-blooded German Shepherd and not a mixed breed. It's easier when you're in an airport and the poor English boarding agent has likely never seen a jackal in her life.

"Thank you," Marc says, sounding just as amused as you feel. "She's mixed with something, we don't know what. Probably a wolf."

You press against his leg in soundless complaint. You aren't a mutt rescued from the shelter. The movement only makes the corner of his mouth tilt up in a half-smile, and he merely nods amicably to the other agent before leading the both of you on board.

He gets an aisle seat every time he flies, and it's the same row with the emergency exit. You settle comfortably at his feet, wiggling back to press your haunches beneath the seat and make room for your fellow passengers to get by. Marc fusses as usual; he adjusts his seatbelt twice and fiddles with the buckles on your harness. You rest the tip of your muzzle on his knee in silent comfort. Jake hates to fly, restless with the lack of control, but you know Marc is caught in the undertow of his own emotional whirlwind.

Your heart still aches with the fear from his sudden disappearance two months ago. It's not uncommon for Marc to be summoned for midnight missions at Khonshu's whim, but this was the first time that he did not come back. This time, Jake did not reach out to assure you that the system was still alive, and it was only through your shallow crossings of the Duat that you knew he was not dead. You had wondered, though, and you had spent too many sleepless nights curled up in the armchair next to the window in your apartment in Tunis, your face turned up to the moon.

In a rational shadow in the back of your mind, you know that he is nearly utterly invulnerable. Khonshu's ceremonial armor deflects most bullets and heals more than just bruises and cuts. The blessing of Anubis you performed on Jake all those years ago is just another fail-safe to keep him whole and alive, just in case he loses the god's favor.

Still, you don't feel comforted until now, when Marc gently rests his palm on the crown of your head, soothing back to run his fingers over the fur on the ruff of your neck.

You may have met Jake, first, but it was Marc that reluctantly began to invite you on Avatar escapades through the world. He still keeps himself walled off from your deeper probing, and he has no idea that Jake has already told you about the life their system grew up in.

You imagine Wendy Spector raising her hand, the air-whistling snap of the belt hitting her surviving son, and it almost makes the fur on your hackles bristle with anger. Jake had insisted on keeping your shared life separate from any mention of their childhood home, but it only serves to fuel your abhorrence of her actions. Whether it was the loss of Marc's brother or the escalation of Wendy's violence, it only contributed to Marc's trauma response.

The shiva made it all worse.

You look up to Marc, still resting your chin on his knee, but he's watching the passengers board the flight with rapt attention. His fingers, idly, stroke through your fur, over and over. You wonder how close to the surface Jake is at the moment. Does he know that you are following them to Austria, despite Marc's poor attempt to leave before you noticed? Can he feel the echo of your fur through Marc's touch, and does it steady him to know that you're right at his side?

You hope he does. You hope that it helps Marc, even in this small way, and you keep still so you don't scare him off from the simple comfort it gives him.

It's not a long flight, but his touch never falters.

Marc lunges for the window.

For a brief minute, you think he's going to summon the suit and use the momentum to float down using his cape. You're already intangible to human touch, a swirling figure of sand rushing through the winding hallways and scattered mercenary forces. Bullets whistle through your chest and skull harmlessly, punching holes of dust and sand into the wall behind you. It's an eerie feeling, like goosebumps prickling up the nape of your neck.

In this form, you are best suited for distraction, not attacking, but you manage to confuse a pair of cultists to shoot at each other by aiming for your abdomen. They collapse to the floor simultaneously, screaming in agony. It hurts to be shot in the gut. It's a pain you know intimately, and you don't feel remorse for the way they curl in on themselves, weeping and gasping for air.

A shocked shout from the window catches your attention. You forget the minor discomfort of bullets whizzing through your form when you watch Marc leap out of the window, wearing nothing but his travel clothes.

IDIOT, Khonshu rumbles in Marc's wake. DON'T LET THEM CATCH YOU.

"Not helping," you mutter. You tap your emblem of Anubis, gravity settling over your body like a shroud. With the flick of your wrist, you summon your staff. Sand drips from the cuff of your armor’s wrist to solidify into a gleaming golden pole just as long as you are tall, curving into a laughing jackal’s mouth at the top, its eyes glittering with blood-stone gems. In the mid-morning light shining through the castle's windows, the flecks of red in its eyes glow like a beacon, sharpening in response to the stench of death permeating the air.

To the disgruntled cultist aiming his gun at you, you offer him a polite smile. "Sorry, but you're in the way, and you tried to shoot my husband."

The jackal's jaw slackens to bare its teeth, and that is the cultist's only warning before the blood-stones emit a curling tendril of smoke that cripples him into a lifeless pile of limbs. He isn't dead, but he won't be able to shoot you in the back while you regroup with Marc and plan your escape. Khonshu seems satisfied by the effort because he crosses the room in four long strides, the heel of his staff tapping in succinct rhythm across the floor.

You sweep the room quickly, kicking the gun to the other side of the room under a set of drawers. The compound is sparsely decorated. As far as you and Marc figure, this is nothing more than a crash-pad for Harrow's cult, one of many international safehouses they utilize while recruiting new members. Still, you take the time to open the cabinet door of the armoire against the far wall, briefly rummaging through the lower drawers. Nothing but clothes, but it's worth a look all the while. You found the scarab tucked away in a sock drawer, after all. They are not very good at hiding valuable artifacts.

From his perch in the window, Khonshu calls down, GO BACK TO SLEEP, WORM.

That catches your attention. You raise your head and find Khonshu shaking his head in disgust. Marc must have hit the ground hard if he forced Jake to the front. It sends a chill of worry twisting through your gut, but you know the suit could heal internal damage if needed. Khonshu doesn't look annoyed by Marc's impending death, just the unexpected arrival of Jake.

You can't necessarily blame him. Jake's finesse is in his ruthlessness. He could go blind and deaf and still crawl his way to the next target without relenting. Marc is better at strategy, and right now, you needed a solid plan to escape the village without being followed by the cultists. Not to mention that he has the scarab.

"Don't call him that," you tell Khonshu. You shut the drawers and make for the doorway, mentally remapping the compound in your mind. There's still militia-trained forces prowling the building, and you know the town is full of Harrow's sympathizers. There's one winding road down the mountain that made you carsick just driving up it, but you figure your rental car might be sticking out like a sore thumb now that the hunt for the scarab is underway.

Khonshu may be right. You need Marc, and you need to get the hell out of here.

Unlike Marc, you have no intentions to leap from the window and break every bone in your body. Suit or not, you can manage to navigate to a lower level and avoid risking losing consciousness.

"Hello?"

You hardly hear it, lost to the distance and the mental gymnastics you're performing to plan an escape, and you freeze in the doorway. You have never heard Jake's voice sound so small and unsure. Did he suffer a head injury? Was there something wrong with their healing, some wound so dire that he sounds surprised to wake up in a new place? Jake is a punch-first and ask-later man. His first instinct is always to find a weapon.

YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE, Khonshu rumbles, irritation crackling in the air like ozone in a thunderstorm.

"Yep. I completely agree." A pause, then a faint and confused, "Where are you?"

"Oh, no," you mutter.

SURRENDER THE BODY TO MARC.

"Khonshu," you hiss. You check the hallway for soldiers and, blissfully, find none. Carefully, you step back from the doorway and tap your Anubis emblem, swirling into intangibility. You ignore the resulting dizzying swell of nausea that pitches low in your stomach. Your voice can still carry in this form, so you whisper-shout to him, "That's not Jake."

In answer, faint and pitched in concern, is Steven's stuttering, "'Surrender the body'? What body?"

Khonshu's lung-rattling sigh shakes through the room like a storm. OH, THE IDIOT'S IN CONTROL.

"He doesn't know what's happening," you say defensively. "Don't frighten him."

Without a backward glance, Khonshu dissipates from the windowsill, vanishing from sight. You swear under your breath and take off towards the window in four broad strides, leaping up to perch delicately on the open windowsill. The compound is nestled in the mountain-flanked valley of a quaint countryside village, and the picturesque endless field of green grass and wildflowers is violently interrupted by Steven's bewildered presence.

Looming behind him in disapproval is Khonshu, gripping his staff in a perplexed vice-grip. You shake your head down at the god's back. He's going to give Steven a heart-attack.

God, Steven is here. Sweet-spoken, non-confrontational, untrained Steven. The alter kept so tightly smothered by Marc and Jake that you have never formally met him face-to-face before the brief stint during your museum visit just yesterday afternoon. Now it feels like a lifetime ago. You watch, frowning, as he senses Khonshu's presence and jerks back to look behind himself, his gaze tracing up to you.

No, not you. He cannot see you in this form; Jake may have the uncanny ability to sense your sand-forged figure, but you know that to the naked eye you look as unremarkable as dust shimmering in the sun. Nothing more than a trick to the eyes. He looks up at the window you're perched in, squinting, before his gaze follows a shift of movement in the window next to yours.

From this distance, you see the way his frightened, wide eyes narrow in on the man leaning out to catch his target, his mouth opening in a soft gasp of shock. He offers a polite, if not utterly confused, wave up to the cultist staring down at him. You watch the exchange in silent disbelief, still poised to drop from the window to land far below if needed, and you have to bite the inside of your cheek to stifle your surprised laugh when the cultist waves back to Steven.

"Hullo," Steven says, brow furrowed. "Hiya."

Oh, Steven, you think, grinning. You've heard plenty of stories from Jake, and you met him in the gift shop, but watching his sweet and confused mannerisms makes you want to haul down there and throw your arms around him in a hug. No wonder the other two are so protective of him. He's simply… kind. Polite, too, in a way that seems utterly foreign in a body you have seen ravage destruction and death for years.

"What are you doing?" The second cultist's snarl yanks your attention up from Steven, just in time for you to see the gun aimed down at him.

Steven panics, far below, but you're utterly infuriated at the sight of those guns aimed at your husband's body. Marc may be down for the count and Jake seems to be under the surface consciousness, but you're still here, and you refuse to watch Steven get hurt. Not even your lingering vertigo can distract you from that simple, unrelenting purpose.

You launch yourself at them from your adjacent window, catching the sail of the valley winds, and you tap the emblem on your chest just in time to form tangibility and connect your heel to the square of the second cultist's chest. He falls back with a stifled cry of surprise, and you pull your fist back to punch him across the jaw, silencing him into a deadweight blackout.

DON'T JUST STAND THERE! RUN!

"You're one of them," the other cultist gasps from behind you. He raises his gun, leveling the assault rifle's barrel to your forehead, and you swirl into nothingness just as he pulls the trigger. The drawback kicks his aim up just enough to avoid killing the cultist you knocked unconscious, and you take advantage of his surprise at your disappearance to leap past him and plunge several stories down to the grass below. You flinch when your feet hit the ground, but in your sand-form, the impact is nothing more than the faintest pressure on the soles of your shoes.

You don't linger on the fact that you are unbelievably lucky you aren't dead. There are limits to your power, and you rarely tread so closely to the cliff's edge of its boundaries. Steven being here changes things, particularly your wariness and ritual of lingering to the edges of confrontation, but there's the uncomfortable acknowledgment that you may go to touch your emblem only to find yourself unable to change forms.

Is it worse to be intangible to all other life, nothing but sand?

Or should you be more worried of being unable to change into untouchable dust when there's a gun aimed for your chest and murder in a cultist's eyes?

Fuck. You need Marc or Jake to surge back into control and get the hell out of here before the scarab is taken back into Harrow's clutches. You are nothing more than the death specialist, a harbinger ferryman of the dead and the dying, a woefully under-skilled strategist in the grand scheme of your scarab heist. Marc could navigate his way out of a coffin sunken to the bottom of the ocean, just as Jake could struggle and drag himself out of a tomb buried under miles of dirt with nothing but his bare hands and sheer determination.

Steven… well. He's running directly to the center of a town that is intent on following the lawless word of a disgraced Avatar, carrying the one artifact you need to keep from their clutches.

You send up a silent prayer to Anubis, though his tangible presence is nothing more than a muted shadow to your existence at the moment. He can be more helpful than Khonshu, at least from your brief past experiences, but you aren't aspiring to tempt the boundaries of his ability in this plane of existence just yet.

Get the scarab, keep the body of your husband alive, and perhaps avoid losing your attachment to your psychical body altogether. It should be manageable. How much trouble could a museum gift shopist cause in a town of murderous cultists?

You are so used to working with Jake or Marc that, when Arthur Harrow commands his brainwashed audience to kneel, you follow suit without thinking about how Steven is woefully out of the loop.

It is an instinct for you to blend in, even if your sand-shrouded figure is indecipherable to the untrained eye, and your blood runs cold as ice when you hear his startled little gasp before he realizes what he has failed to do.

"Oh, bullocks," he mutters, and his aborted attempt to kneel in order to avoid the attention makes you grimace in silent sympathy. This is not going to be a clean and fairly-matched encounter. Steven has done his best to navigate the labyrinth of village streets in search of an escape route, with you tracing his every move as a dust-streaked shadow, but you know that he is not like you. Marc and Jake keep him stifled beneath the veil of normalcy because they think the violence will break him.

You think, grimly, that violence upon Steven will end up breaking Marc and Jake far more.

"You. I know you," Harrow rasps, and the hungry wildness in his eyes betrays his feeble posture and modest robes as nothing but a farce. You know the danger this man is capable of.

You tap your emblem and silently swirl into physical being. The cultists huddled next to you gasp softly and shuffle away, but you only have eyes for the way Harrow stares down Steven with ravenous curiosity. Like a cat catching a mouse.

"Me?" Steven squeaks out. He stiffens, pointing to himself, and slowly rises to his feet like a deer caught in headlights. "Hiya."

You rise with him, no more than a meter apart, but from this angle he cannot see you flanking his back. Harrow can, though, and his gaze narrows in on you with that same insatiable urge to hunt you down.

"Mercenary," he says. The tone of his voice rouses the cultists around you, prompting them to rise, and every instinct in your body is screaming at you to wield your jackal-headed staff and clear an escape. If you had the proper time to curse out Marc for his stupid impulse to fling himself out of a window and get knocked out, you would. Again.

As it is, though, the cultists that initially retreated to give you space are edging closer, lured by the ire that Harrow directs at you.

"Mercenary," Steven is saying, but it's more like his anxiety bubbling up and resorting to straight blabbering, really, because he's looking about as if he expects a camera crew to expose themselves as a T.V. stunt rather than a real life or death situation. He gives a nervous little laugh. "No, no, I'm not a mercenary. No, I'm a gift shopist. Uh, I work at a gift shop. Um. My name's Steven Grant."

Harrow shuffles a half-step closer to Steven, eyeing him, and you step forward, too, tensing in preparation.

Steven is still talking.

"Uh, I'm trying to get back home. Back to London." He gives a desperate look to the unmoved crowd of cultists around him, but he still doesn't turn around enough to see you right behind him, prepared to leap into the fray. Even he can sense that the greatest danger of them all is directly in front of him, and he can't quite look away. "London? Don't know why I'm saying it like that."

"Well, Steven Grant of the gift shop," Harrow affirms, flat-out amused, and now he's walking towards Steven with a clear intent. Every movement like a man possessed with desire. You have what I want, and I will pry it from your hands.

"Yeah?" Steven acknowledges, and there's a tremor of fear in his voice that plucks at your very heartstrings. This will not be an easy fight, and suddenly you really wish you could properly curse out Marc for being such a fucking idiot. Who the hell is stupid enough to leap out of a window from that high up?

Jake, maybe.

"Will you return the scarab?" Harrow asks Steven, and you know he can recognize the wavering confusion as an easier target compared to you. Unfortunately for him, you don't intend to let the scarab go so easily. Especially now that you have an inkling that Jake may not be so far under the surface as you initially assumed.

"The what?" Steven stammers, just as you speak up.

"No."

Steven jolts as if he's been struck by lightning, turning to meet you face-to-face. The frightened dart of his eyes and anxious downturn of his mouth is so unlike the usual expressions you see on that handsome face. Anger, yes, and solemnity even more, but never such raw, confused terror. His brows stitch together when he recognizes you.

"Gift shop," he blurts you. He points at you accusingly. "You were there. This morning."

You offer him a sympathetic wince. You don't have the heart, nor the time, to argue with him about the time differences of traveling from London to here. "Yes. Sort of."

"What's this, then?" He says, and there's that flare of indignation you know all too well. He fumbles for his pockets, and the scarab's gold carapace gleams in the sunlight as he offers it to you. You don't take it, but it's less to do with the responsibility of keeping it safe and more to do with the fact that the crowd around you dissipates at the sight of the artifact, and Harrow takes three steps closer.

"It's a compass shaped like a scarab," you say, and your voice is far more calmer than you feel at the moment. "Don't give it to him, Steven. Please."

To his credit, he notices the crowd of cultists shuffling away, too. He eyes the growing gap between the both of you and them with wariness. Like a caged animal. You just wish you knew him well enough to know how he will react to being caught at the edge. He seems inclined to listen to you, at least, because he thrusts his hand towards you pleadingly.

"I don't want it," he tells you. You nod, and just as you reach out to take it from him, a man with beady dark eyes and a shaved head reaches for your elbow, tugging you back a half-step. You stiffen in his grip, prepared for a fight, but he releases you with nothing more than a thinly-veiled look of discouragement. It's only a warning.

YOU WILL GIVE HIM NOTHING, Khonshu rumbles, lurking along the edge of the crowd, and Steven can't conceal the startled little flinch he gives, nor the panicked little glance around in search of the god. His eyes pass over Khonshu's form without notice, and you don't have to wonder why Khonshu only registers to your senses and not his.

"It's okay," you say, your tone soft enough to placate Steven, but it's the annoyed glare you cut to Khonshu that translates your words with more of an edge. Let me handle this.

"I strongly encourage you to return that," Harrow says, and Steven jumps at the sound of his voice as if he forgot that Harrow was there at all. Before you can interject, he holds out his hand for Harrow, the scarab gleaming maddeningly bright for him to take.

"Steven," you start, tensing, only half-aware of the cultist lingering at your side prepared to step in if you make the wrong move, and the fear for yourself melts away into despair as Harrow reaches back to take it.

Only for Steven's fingers to curl into a fist, tight enough to bare his knuckles stark-pale. Harrow stares with utter incredulity as Steven fumbles to unlock his grip, prying desperately at his fingers, stammering on and on about the altitude, and you can't help but smile. Even Khonshu, lingering at the shadow of your peripheral, tilts his head like a predator catching a scent.

The body betrays him; Steven unfurls his fingers only for his arm to wrench itself back, out of reach.

"I will not ask again," Harrow narrows his gaze.

"I didn't do that on purpose," Steven tries. "I don't know what's happening."

"We're not here for a fight, Harrow," you add. His eyes land on you like the weight of the world. The shimmer-faint edges of his expired Avatarship to Khonshu catch in the midday sun, the only highlight of the desolate, gnawing shadow of his soul. Like an eclipse, the festering darkness blots out all the rest. Corruption of spirit.

You are not Moon Knight. You don't carry an arsenal to enact justice on behalf of the travelers of the night. But you are a faithful Avatar of Anubis, and you know your place is to act as a protector of the dead. As Harrow stands here, now, you can see the smears of putrefaction steeping into the very marrow of his soul, straight into his beating, unbalanced heart. Spirits cling to his shoulders and down his back in a cacophony, rending through his flesh without teeth.

The dead do not lie. He is a haunted, manipulative man.

"I last saw you in Cairo," Harrow muses. He taps his cane against the cobblestone once, twice, each rap of the tip echoing through the silent crowd like a gunshot. Steven flinches at each beat, and you can only stare at Harrow with pulsing anger. "You have a child to return to. Don't make a mistake you will regret, Mrs. Lockley."

"Oi, don't do that," Steven blurts out, and nearly withers at the way Harrow stares him down. The body is still wound tight, arm outstretched behind him in defiance, but Steven wiggles himself awkwardly around to offer the scarab to Harrow. "There we go, just take it. Take it, take it, take it."

Harrow looks none too pleased at the display, but he reaches out all the same. At the same moment, you summon your staff, fingers trembling with the exertion, and the cultists around you swarm closer with hungry violence. The body purposefully marches Steven out of Harrow's reach, and you only find your voice enough to shout out a warning before they seize him into a stifling hold.

"Don't hurt him!" You shout to Harrow, and the step you take to help is immediately pushed back by the crowd gathering around you, separating you, isolating Steven into Harrow's grasp. You swing out with your staff in a fit of frustration, hoping to bid back the tide, but one of the men knocks away your blow before it makes contact. Another cultist snatches your other arm, wrenching it behind your back hard enough to make you yelp in pain. You lash out with your foot and manage to catch someone in the knee, but any pride in hearing their cry of pain is stifled by the growing swarm.

You can't see him, but you can hear Steven pleading for them to stop, his voice high-pitched with fear, and the wave of desperation that comes over you sours like bile in the back of your mouth. No, it can't end like this. You flail out to hit someone, anyone, your pulse rushing in your ears like a tempest, Harrow's placating tone fueling the pyre in your chest.

"It's all right," Harrow tells his flock of cultists, even as you struggle against the grip of your captors, helpless to resist as they raise you up and drag you towards a storefront. The building is nondescript, painted a sunshine-pale yellow with white trim, but the windows are covered with brown kraft paper to block out both light and the eyes of curious passerby. If they bring you in there, you don't think you will be able to make it back out.

That's the thought that makes you sick enough to scream.

It cuts off with a sharp note when one of them hits you, exploding starlight behind your eyes and tilting the world into vertigo, pain streaking across your face in a supernova. An answering wail of pain rises up from too-far away, accompanied by a sickening crunch of bone, and a spectral voice sighs out above your head. It's a world-weary and impatient sound, just as impatient as Eliana's.

FINALLY. YOU TOOK YOUR TIME, WORM.

"Shut up," Jake grates out from behind you, and the sound of his voice fills you with such relief that tears prick at the back of your eyes. The cultists carrying you slacken their hold, and you even manage to loosen their grip on your arm long enough to pull free and slug a fist across one man's jaw. The others are quickly downed by Jake, and through the haze of adrenaline-laced panic you can sense his hand brushing over your cheek in a gentle, searching caress.

"Okay," you mutter out, but your eyes flutter shut in a traitorous display of fondness to his touch. Warmth drips down the side of your face, and you can feel the rough pad of his thumb wiping back the stray tear. "I'm okay, I'm okay."

His hand retreats just as quickly as it came, and you open your eyes to see Steven blinking back at you, looking ashen at the sight of the bodies around you. Just like that, the fear evaporates in the light of fury. You can see Harrow watching you both with suspicion from just over Steven's shoulder, and the crowd at his back edge closer with growing discontent.

NO, Khonshu laments. THE IDIOT'S BACK.

"Run," you tell Steven. You swipe a hand over your cheeks to clear away the remaining tears that escape, grimacing down at the blood now on your hand, and Steven eyes his own bloodied hands with growing horror. His gaze darts from the blood to your face to your own bloody hand, silently calculating, and you hate that this is one of his first impressions of you. It's eerily similar to your first encounter with Jake but instead of the unveiled glee in the violence, Steven only looks sick.

"Steven," you snap. He shakes off the blank veil of fear and finally seems to notice the danger edging in around you. His eyes widen. "Run!"

"Bullocks," he gasps. He stumbles a step back, realizes that you're both slowly being surrounded, and looks to you with growing desperation. Then his eyes land on something right over your shoulder, and you follow his gaze to a bright pink delivery van. "Right, let's just, uh, go this way?"

DON'T YOU DARE DROP THE SCARAB.

"All right, all right!" Steven cries up at the sky, but you're already moving, reaching out to curl your fingers over his wrist and drag him along. He keeps pace with you surprisingly well, even if you can feel his pulse jumping unsteadily underneath your touch, and you barely make it to the cupcake van before all hell breaks loose.

[dusterbishop]

i mistakenly called them by your name.

summary. || you're the avatar of anubis and the biggest secret you harbor is your relationship with jake lockley and the daughter you share. when the scarab falls into the hands of a cult, you delve into the fray and hope you can balance saving the world with protecting your secrets.

pairing. || moon knight system x f!reader (established relationship with jake, marc and steven join in later)

count. || 6.2k

notes. || posted on ao3 here. my annual moon knight obsession has taken over my brain and it's currently missing jake lockley hours </3

part one. || part two.

Despite being the Avatar of an ancient Egyptian deity, you don’t necessarily believe in fate. There is no such connection between the world and an individual such as destiny, such as there is no connection between one person and another that classifies as a soulmate bond. People exist in a state of utter abandon, and they are nothing but reactive to the state of the world around them.

Yet, as you turn around to show Eliana another exhibit on Ancient Egypt, dutifully reading aloud the brass-plated plaque she points at, you wonder how much of a coincidence it is that you see your husband standing there, just behind the gift-shop counter. The sight of him plunges your every nerve into a tumultuous sea of arctic water, the waves crashing through your body in a rush of panic. If he knows you followed him back to London, with Eliana no less…

Until you see his gaze meander your way, then slide right over the two of you as if you are nothing but ordinary museum attendees. There’s a slouch to his shoulders, his presence curled up in itself, but you have to tear your attention away before he catches you staring. Or, more likely, before you break and stride over there to demand answers. You have had enough time to sketch out and fine-tune your list of questions for him, and when you booked the flight to London you thought you were composed enough to be able to propose your tidy list to him without wanting to grab him by the lapels of his coat and shake some sense into his stupid fractured brain.

You let out a slow, controlled breath. You’re composed, of course you are. Nothing can shake you.

“Mama,” Eliana says, tugging at your hand impatiently, and you feel a jolt of awareness at the back of your mind that signals the creeping presence of a god nearby. This one isn’t yours.

“Yes, habibti?” You say, casually scanning the museum lobby. It’s a public, brightly-lit institution with sparkling glass cases displaying relics far older than you. There are groups of people sparsely scattering around the room, milling idly from one display to the next, unaware of the oversized jackal trotting through people and the display cases as a spectral entity.

The black-tipped tip of its tail wags in gentle greeting when it catches you looking, and you manage a pointed glance at Eliana before turning your attention back to the exhibit she dragged you to.

“It’s you,” she announces cheerily, grinning up at you. She is a dead-ringer for her father; same loose black curls and dark eyes that glimmer with a mischievous streak of satisfaction in teasing you. You look closer at the replicated statue of a jackal-headed god and huff out a laugh. It’s a statue of Anubis, of course, and you don’t have to look behind you to know that the jackal lingering in your shadow has an open-muzzle grin at the acknowledgment.

“Your flail is better,” she adds, pointing to the replicated flail dangling in the statue’s hand. The museum’s version is plated with imitation gold and striped blue, the metal sparkling beneath the fluorescent lights. The length of its handle fits flush to the statue’s forearm in the traditional symbol of a shepherd’s tool.

“Mine does look different,” you agree, idly swinging your joined hands between you. She stares up at the statue of Anubis with an intent solemnity, and you feel that familiar pitch of guilt in the pit of your stomach. Your service as a god’s Avatar is absolute; as his hands and his faith, you have had to adjust to a life of constant change. What began as a simple career at a local mortuary has transformed into a globe-trotting itinerary with a rapidly-expanding catalog of adversaries.

You resist the urge to glance over at the gift-shop counter and instead tuck a stray curl from Eliana’s eyes, smiling at the way she twists to look over her shoulder and scrunch her nose up at you. “I think we should take a break for lunch, habibti.”

“I wanna see the Ennead,” she frowns. Well, it’s bordering closer to a pout, but you can tell she’s getting hungry and her temper is on a shorter fuse than normal. She points to the banners on the wall, naming off the gods she sees, then pauses. “Where are the other gods, Mama?”

You study the display. There are only seven of the Ennead displayed, Anubis included, unlike the nine traditionally depicted. It’s clear who is missing immediately, and some strange emotion flutters in your gut at the realization.

“Khonshu and Ammit are gone,” Eliana announces. She twists around, peering for any sign of their presence, and she goes tense in your grip when she spots the man at the gift shop counter. “Oh! Daddy’s here.”

“He’s not himself today, habibti,” you tell her. She squints at him, studying the curve of his posture and the polite smile he gives the old woman buying a glass paperweight in the shape of a pyramid. There’s an earnest sheen to the clumsy way he gestures towards the display of fridge magnets that makes his customer smile, polite yet uninterested. He looks like he’s spouting off a laundry list of information, and the old woman nods kindly as she collects her change and receipt before retreating. He manages a wave in goodbye then moves onto his next customer.

“He’s nice,” Eliana decrees. “Can we say ‘hi’, Mama?”

Yeah, Jake is going to kill you for this.

“Sure, habibti. Let’s get a souvenir and we can see him when we checkout.”

In the very least, it’s an easy redirect towards getting her out of the museum to get lunch. She practically drags you over to the gift shop, her eyes taking in the inventory with ravenous longing, and you notice the display of plushies with a resigned sigh.

“Taweret!” She shouts. You let go of her hand before she yanks you off-balance to follow behind at a slower distance, smiling as she gazes reverently at the tower of plush hippos. The black bead eyes shine kindly under the display lights, perfectly reminiscent of the goddess herself. She would be utterly delighted to see the merchandise in her likelihood.

“Oh, we just got those in,” an accented voice says, coming around the checkout counter to edge closer to the two of you. The relentless buzz of worry and stress that you have been harboring since Jake went missing in the dead of a Cairo night eases as his body comes into view. Of course, you assure yourself, his body is fine. With the Moon Knight suit to accelerate his healing instantly in battle and Anubis’s blessing to keep him whole, he was never in danger of death.

Still, your shoulders loosen from the relief, and you turn to smile at him. The name tag fastened to the lapel of his jacket says ‘Steven’, though you figured as much based on the British accent and the seemingly exemplary customer service skills he has displayed. Marc, during the plentiful amount of life-threatening occasions you’ve clashed with him in, is not as patient as his alter, and you know Jake prefers limited contact with strangers when necessary.

“She’s a bit of an Egyptology enthusiast,” you tell him, gesturing to Eliana. A sensation of warmth spreads through your chest as you watch Steven turn to your daughter, his face lighting up in delight. Jake liked to lament the fact that she was just as Egypt-obsessed as Steven was, though you knew he was secretly pleased that she shared that trait with his fellow alter. Steven is a soft-hearted history nerd, he had told you, and he never shuts up about it.

And you love him for it, you had translated, and Jake had expertly changed the subject by changing the channel on the television to put on the game show you both liked. There was something to be said about the way he complained about Steven’s constant stream of history trivia facts only to religiously tune in to Jeopardy with you during his time in the body. Not to mention how damned good he was at it.

“Hello, there,” he says to her, crouching to get closer to her level. He points to the display of stuffed hippos. “I reckon you know who that is, yeah?”

“Taweret,” Eliana beams. She looks to Steven with that smile, and he returns it just as brilliantly. “She’s the goddess of women and children, an’ she helps steer the boat in the Duat.”

Steven raises his eyebrows at that, but his voice doesn’t falter from that kind, attentive tone. “Wow, you’re an expert! She helps guide the souls through the afterlife, yeah?”

“She weighs hearts,” Eliana agrees.

“Oi,” Steven says, sounding a little put-out by the declaration. “Well, that’s more of Osiris’s thing, innit? Weighing the heart, comparing it with the feather?”

Uh-oh. You know that her furrowed brow mean she’s gearing up to properly educate Steven on the true nature of the Duat, so you edge your way back into the conversation, crouching down to be level with her and Steven.

“Do you want to tell Steven what we noticed, Eliana?” You prompt, and her face turns solemn as she stares down Steven.

“You’re missing two,” she tells him. At his startled look, she points over his shoulder to the Ennead banners displayed on the far wall. “Khonshu gets cranky when you don’t talk about him.”

You barely manage to tilt your head down to hide your grin from Steven. She clearly picked that observation up from Jake, who often translated his disdain for Khonshu’s regular self-righteous rants into kid-appropriate terminology when he noticed her paying attention.

“Right,” Steven says, frowning. For a beat, you think it’s from the way Eliana talked about the Egyptian god of the moon with familiarity, but no, he looks justified as he points to the banners. “I told my boss the same thing, yeah? There are nine members of the Ennead and only seven banners. In a museum!”

Uh-oh. Now you got Steven all worked up.

“Stevie!” A voice shouts, startling the three of you. Eliana reaches out to clasp Steven’s hand, eyes wide, and some unspeakable emotion clogs your throat when you see his grip on her hand tighten reflexively, a silent comfort.

“Uh, here!” he calls. To Eliana, he says, “Donna, my boss.”

He dares a glance your way, and you blink at the flush of red creeping over the crest of his cheekbones. You aren’t used to your husband’s body looking so… soft and shy. Not in public, anyway. “I’m real sorry about that.”

“Don’t apologize,” you tell him, soft, and he seems to blush harder only to yelp in surprise when Donna turns the corner. He straightens up to his feet fast enough to shake the display rack of Taweret plushies in a dangerously tedious wobble, which makes Eliana giggle and in turn draws Donna's attention to the way he’s still gripping onto your daughter’s hand.

“What do you think you’re doing?” She asks him, her voice edged in exasperated annoyance, and you rise up from your crouch, eyes narrowed. Donna gestures to their clasped hands. “Let go of that child, Stevie, what’s the matter with you?”

Steven releases Eliana’s hand as if her touch burns, and she stares up at him with wide eyes, hurt twisting her bottom lip into a wavering pout. You reach out and draw her closer to your side, smoothing a hand over her dark curls as she buries her face against the hem of your coat to hide her tears.

You look at Steven, and the gutted expression that flashes across his face nearly rends you in half. Jake. You would know him by sight alone, even if he only takes control of the body’s expression just long enough for you to see his hurt before he shutters himself away again. Got you, you think, relief unraveling the pit of worry trapped beneath your ribs. The body is alive, yes, but so is Jake. He’s there, even if he masks himself behind the presence of his fellow alter.

Part of you had thought… you had worried that…

“Steven is a real scholar,” you interrupt, forcing a smile to your face, hard-lined with polite disdain for her tone. Donna pulls her glare from Steven and looks at you as if just noticing your presence for the first time. “He was just telling Eliana about the Ennead. She loves Egyptology, I’m so glad she could talk to someone who loves it just as much as she does.”

“Oh, it’s nothin’, really,” Steven scrambles to add, flushing darker, his gaze darting from you to Donna with a wariness that reminds you so much of Jake you wonder if he’s still at the surface of the body’s consciousness, prepared to strike.

“I appreciate his help,” you add over Steven’s stuttering apology to Donna. She gives him a flat, annoyed look then turns to you with a fake smile.

“Well, at least he’s good for something,” she says, pointedly staring at Steven, and the defensive curl of his shoulders makes you want to throttle her. The blaze of fury that curls up the length of your spine is not only your own; a jackal’s rumbling growl echoes in the space above you.

“He is amazing,” you blurt out. She turns to stare at you, but you only have eyes for Steven. His posture is slumped, but those dark eyes are glittering with surprise as you stare at one another, a rising tide of unsaid words swelling in the back of your throat. You want to tell Donna of the incredible knowledge he has, the kindness of his heart, and the mirrored facets of his body that she could never fully understand. She cannot understand that when she disparages Steven Grant, she is also targeting Marc Spector, Jake Lockley, and Moon Knight.

Instead, you say, finally, “I really appreciate it, Steven. We would love to hear more when we come back.”

“Of course,” Steven says immediately, then blanches at the glare Donna gives him. “Right, uh, you’re welcome back anytime, yeah? Eliana, too.”

At the sound of her name, Eliana twists her head to look shyly up at Steven, her fingers easing their death grip on your coat when you gently tug at the curl falling into her eyes. The smile she gives him shines bright enough to make him grin back. “Thanks, Steven!”

“Thanks, Steven,” you repeat, and part of you wonders what Jake sees when you lean down and haul Eliana up onto your hip, carefully maneuvering your way out of the gift shop without bumping into the few patrons staring openly at the strange display between you, Steven, and Donna. He had told you that he stays aware during the day, giving his nights to Marc unless he felt a spike of adrenaline that signaled the start of a fight for the body.

You hope he sees your message loud and clear as you make your way to the museum’s exit, glancing over your shoulder just once to find Steven watching you, his face morphing into guilt and embarrassment when he sees you catch him staring.

You offer him a fleeting smile. You hope Jake sees your silent meaning: come and find me.

***

You get lunch at a cafe across the street from the museum, and you don’t argue when Eliana begs to sit at one of the bistro tables outside despite the clouds rolling in and muddling the sky. London is a dreary change of pace from your last apartment in Tunis, though you silently admire the way Eliana watches with open amazement at the crowded sidewalk and idling cars passing you on the street, enraptured by the bustle of pedestrians and flow of afternoon traffic.

You are no stranger to the world, but you forget how novel the entire experience is for your daughter. For a five year old, she’s been to more countries than you had been to at her age, but she still chews on her sandwich with an absent-minded instinct as she watches. Like the exhibits in the museum, she is utterly taken with the foreign display of another life.

The french fries you ordered taste like ash in your mouth, but you manage to chew and swallow without feeling too nauseous. It helps when you have a spectral jackal curled up at your feet under the table, its weightless head resting on your shoes in silent support. Its head is pointedly aimed to the front doors of the museum, acting as a sentinel. You don’t expect Steven to lose control of the body any time soon, especially not to Jake. Last you heard from him, he was intent on keeping his role in the system as a secret.

There’s enough going on in their head without me, querida.

Fair enough, you think, though you give up on picking at your fries in favor of scrawling another entry in your travel journal. It was a simple way to keep track of Jake’s memories during your former glory days as traveling Avatars, but you keep the habit without him there to add his own observations or opinions.

Noon: Visited the National Art Gallery with Eliana. She took us around the Egyptian exhibits for an hour. Saw Steven in the gift shop. Saw you briefly in the front. Got lunch at the cafe across the street.

Staring down at the entry only furthers that jolt of longing in your heart, so you snap the journal closed and slip it back into your tote bag, far out of sight.

“Oh,” Eliana says, breathless, and you barely have time to look up before you see her get swept up out of her seat by a pair of hands.

Your choked gasp of shock catches the attention of a nearby table, but the older couple looks away when Jake glares back at them, hoisting Eliana up onto his shoulders. He carries the body with the same lithe grace as a panther, you think. Where Steven is huddled and wary, Jake burns as bright as the sun, his shoulders squared, every step graceful and sure.

Even his smile to you is near-predatory. Unhappy.

“Fancy to see you here, querida,” he says. Not unkindly, though you know it’s more for Eliana’s benefit. There’s an edge lining the corner of his mouth that is reserved only for you to see now that she’s stashed safely atop his shoulders.

“I saw Steven!” She tells him, burying her hands in his dark curls. She leans down to press her temple to his, only to squeal in delight when he turns to kiss the tip of her nose.

“You told him he was missing the gods on that poster, princesita?” He hitches his shoulders to make her bounce, and she curls up to steady herself in his grip, giggling riotously against the crown of his curled hair. “I think you forgot something when you left.”

“Not-uh,” she declares. “I got my jacket!”

“Hmm,” Jake muses. “What about your shoes?”

“One, two,” she shows him one foot then the other. Jake’s smile softens at the sight of the untied laces, and you know he’s thinking of the same daily rituals you are. So many mornings he has spent muttering over her sneakers, constantly re-tying the laces, failing to convince her to get velcro shoes because she likes Jake to tie them for her and he cannot resist making her smile, even in that small way.

A morning ritual the two of you have tried to remedy together since he left. You’ve shown her how to tie her own shoes many times since then, but both of you can feel the gaping emptiness that he has left since Cairo.

“¿Estas segura?” He teases, and when she lets out an offended squawk of annoyance, he releases his grip on one of her ankles and pulls out a fuzzy dark-fur plush from his pocket.

You laugh despite yourself. A plush jackal, colored just like the god tucked in at your feet.

“Anubis!” Eliana gasps. She takes the plush from Jake with reverent joy, tucking it securely into the crook of her arm as her other hand curls gently into his dark hair. The exhaustion and annoyance that lined his face earlier is long gone, and a gentle adoration softens his eyes as she leans in to whisper in his ear, “Gracias, Daddy.”

“De nada, princesita,” he whispers back. For a moment, they stay just like that, her face ducked low to lean against his, his hands clasping her ankles to steady her perch on his shoulders. She has the same sort of smile that he does, too, as if it’s a secret split open and divided just for the two of them to share.

You’re loath to interrupt their first moment of peacefulness in nearly two months, so you merely catch Jake’s gaze and hold it, silently conveying every thought rattling in your head.

Cairo. The apartment abandoned in Tunis. The journey to London through international flights, hauling around a cranky kid that missed her dad and didn’t understand why it was important to pretend she wasn’t Eliana Lockley Spector when the boarding agents checked them in. Seeing Jake’s body being piloted by a near-stranger in the gift shop, knowing he was close enough for you to touch but you had no right to ask for the privilege.

“Join us?” You ask softly. He swallows thickly, and for a beat, he lets you see the emotions filtering through his mind in his subdued expression: exhaustion, stress, panic, relief, love, love, love.

“I have an hour for lunch,” he says. He doesn’t say that it’s Steven’s lunch, though you know that based on the tension ticking in his jaw, he’s already wondering how he will cover the blank spot in Steven’s memory when he comes back to front.

You push your plate across the table, and he eyes the untouched sandwich and half-eaten fries with a knowing look.

“No mayo,” he assumes. It’s endearing, you think, watching him scrutinize the lunch date you arranged while Eliana pets his curls with gentle fingers, tangling up the sleep-mussed locks even further. If Steven looked tired and rumpled, then Jake seems exhaustively spent. There’s a firm tilt to the corner of his mouth that reminds you of the way Marc always frowns when he’s in the front, but as Eliana carefully combs through his hair with her little fingers, you can see his expression smooth out and soften.

“You should finish lunch,” he finally says. He’s looking directly at you, but he lifts Eliana up and over his head to settle her in his lap, claiming the chair he swept her up from. She wiggles to lean her head against his collar, her posture loose and sated. He pulls her plate closer to the edge of the table so she can reach, and one of her hands dart out to snatch a french fry.

“Ay, have more than just the fritas,” he admonishes, but he takes a fry off of your plate with a wink only you can see. Eliana giggles but obediently reaches for her half-gnawed sandwich next, and so Jake doesn’t complain when she curls up in his lap to nibble on it, watching the passing traffic with a bright smile that makes your heart ache.

The three of you will never have your little life in Tunis again. You know it, even if you want nothing more than to take Jake by the hand and drag the both of them back home. It eases the sting to know that Jake would go with you and he wouldn’t fight it. His willingness to settle down was never the obstacle in your relationship.

“How was the shiva?” You ask. It’s easier to switch to Spanish; you can feel the sidelong stares from the old couple at the table next to yours, still uneasy at Jake’s sudden appearance. They are likely harmless, but you don’t have enough energy to sidestep the actual topic you need to discuss by using petty code-speak.

Jake takes the offering without stumbling. “Didn’t go in. Had to nudge them through the city streets before one of them got run over.”

“The museum is just his day job, then?” You ask, nodding to the name tag still fastened to Jake’s coat. Or it was technically Steven’s coat, you supposed. The three of them have their own preferences, and you know Jake would have preferred something softer and warmer for the tepid English weather.

“Gallivanting at night,” Jake agrees. He takes another fry off of your plate and eats it slowly, chewing as if he can delay the conversation entirely. Eliana eats just as slow, you notice, and you wonder if it isn’t just Jake who feels the tension brewing between the two of you.

It isn’t fair for her, you think, and that gives you the courage to speak first.

“I’ve been talking to my sister,” you start, and the next sentence dies in your throat when you see Jake stiffen, panic flashing through his eyes before his gaze settles in wary distrust. The slope of his shoulders tense into a straight, drawn-back posture. A soldier’s stance.

“You,” Marc says flatly. Eliana straightens up at the sound of his voice, looking at you with wide eyes, and you can only offer her a smile in what you hope conveys comfort. Either that, or you just might expose some of the frustration welling up in your chest.

“Just having lunch,” you tell Marc. His brows draw together, unsure, and you quickly jump back into English. “We invited Steven to lunch.”

Wrong thing to say. The tension stiffens into protectiveness, his dark eyes slowly taking in the plates on the table, the half-eaten vegetarian sandwich pushed between you and him. Then his attention trails down to Eliana, and his expression smooths out when he realizes that she’s watching him with rapt attention.

“Hi, Eliana,” Marc says, soft. When he looks at you, that wariness turns the softness of his black eyes back to stone. “Steven isn’t involved in any of this, Lockley.”

You nod. The sound of his voice sends that shiver down your back. God, you missed this so much. Jake may be the alter you married, but Marc is still the reason you have him and Eliana. He was your partner in a way Jake didn’t quite equate to.

“I know.” You offer your best apologetic look, but he doesn’t seem swayed until you nod to Eliana. “We came to the city for my sister. I got a lead and I needed the babysitter.”

“Lockley,” he warns. He glances around the cafe, and you follow his gaze. The old couple that sat next to you have gone while you were distracted, and you supposed it was good they left before they noticed Jake switch into a brooding American from Chicago that looked like he was holding a pipe bomb rather than your daughter in his lap. The faces around you are different but unassuming, and none seem interested in your suddenly tense conversation. It’s only the three of you, and the jackal curled languidly at your feet, unbothered by the display.

Good. That must mean Khonshu isn’t here yet. When Marc looks back to you, you smile at him.

“I know,” you say, soft enough to sound less like a defense mechanism and more like an olive branch. It doesn’t loosen the slope of his shoulders, though there’s less wrinkles across his brow. “I just needed time before meeting with Sophia. Eliana wanted to see the exhibits.”

“I saw a mummy,” Eliana adds, patting Marc’s shoulder to get his attention. The anger clears from his face when he tilts his head down to offer his full attention. His eyes linger on the plush jackal clutched in the crook of her arm, but he merely offers her a kind, gentle smile.

“Oh, yeah?” He says. He pokes her side, supporting her weight when she jolts away at the ticklish touch with a giggle, then pokes at the plush on her other side. “You picked up a souvenir, too?”

“Anubis,” Eliana affirms. She pulls it out to offer it to Marc, and his hand is gentle as he pets the top of its furry head, his smile tugging ruefully at the corners of his mouth. You take a brief, gracious moment to silently thank Jake for his thoughtfulness. Not only did Eliana have a souvenir, but it was a good cover story for when this exact scenario happened: they saw Steven at the gift shop counter during checkout, and they got lunch together.

From what you knew of Steven, you gathered that he was an earnest, kind-hearted, and well-mannered man. He wouldn’t refuse an offer for lunch, and he was just as likely to strike up a friendship with Eliana through a few conversations about their shared love for Egyptology.

Like you choosing the vegan-friendly restaurant, Jake chose a prop for a lunch date. For all of the complaints he had about Marc’s love for strategy, he could be a formidable opponent in the game of chess you all played with the system. Hiding Steven from the world of Avatars, hiding Jake from Marc and Steven, hiding who you and Eliana truly are from Marc.

It was all a delicate circus act of balance and lies, and you wondered just how far you could let it go before it all came crashing down. Marc would be gutted if he knew the girl cradled in his lap was his daughter just as much as she was Jake’s and Steven’s. He would be furious if he knew his marriage to Layla was null and void just because he was married to you, instead, long before he started to even date her.

Yeah, some chess game you all played. Some days you wondered if it would be easier simply to set the board on fire and let it all go.

“I’m sorry,” you say suddenly.

Marc and Eliana both look to you, an eerie mirror to the life you pose for. She has his striking dark eyes and soft curls, and thanks to you, she has his name, too. One of the contacts you worked with beyond the scope of Marc and Layla’s influences forged her birth certificate and passport, sympathetic when you explained to her that Eliana was a surprise and her father had no interest in being involved. She needed identification papers, and you couldn’t go to the local embassy to register her birth with her father, and so you made them up.

You couldn’t blame Jake for lying about his role in the system. You were just as complicit in the deceit of your daughter’s life. By extension, for better and for worse, that meant Marc’s life, too.

“For showing up so suddenly,” you explain. “I didn’t expect to get so caught up in a museum today. We just had to kill some time.”

In emphasis, you check your watch, and you don’t have to fake the tired sigh that overcomes you at the acknowledgment of the time. Steven’s lunch was about over, and you had to catch the next bus to your sister’s house before she started to worry about you.

Marc, ever attentive, takes the hint.

“I understand,” he says, though he doesn’t sound happy. “Just… leave him out of this. We can talk about the scarab later.”

“Didn’t tell you that was my lead,” you point out, a little sly, and he levels you with an unamused look. You relent, “I’ll share my sources and we can make a plan. You don’t have to rush in alone.”

The smile he gives you is bitter. “Am I ever alone, Lockley?”

With that, you watch as his posture softens, Marc stepping back from control. For a moment, you wonder if he intends to have Steven step in, in which case explaining the lunch arrangement again will get much more confusing. But no, you can see Jake’s mouth twitch with a muted frown before he gives you a wide, uncharacteristically bright smile.

“Right, look at the time,” Jake says, and you can’t help but smile at the British accent. “I best get a move on, right, love?”

He presses a kiss to the top of Eliana’s head, and only you can see the way he closes his eyes for a heartbeat, a wave of longing sweeping across his face before it settles back to an imitation of Steven’s soft look and he leans back. When he looks at you, his face betrays nothing of his true nature, and you wonder what he would say if Marc wasn’t hovering so close to the front, watching your interaction.

He would probably be pissed. He didn’t like to be left out of the loop, and you coming to London was so far out of left field that you came from another stadium. Bringing Eliana only complicated things, but were you supposed to leave her with your neighbors in Tunis? As much as you liked and trusted the al-Karims that lived next door, they were vastly unprepared to take care of Eliana if you never came back. Next of kin was the best opportunity you had, at least for now.

“It was nice to see you,” you say to your husband. You hold his eyes for a long moment, a silent conversation held delicately between the two of you. Years of working side-by-side as Avatars and the aspect of parenthood where being aware of what Eliana shouldn’t have to hear finely tuned your silent communication skills, and you are more than fluent in the language of Jake Lockley.

He is beyond pissed. He is utterly fucking terrified. He wants you to leave just as much as he wants to pull you in and keep you close. He wants to settle in and rest, even for just a little while, and he does not want to let the two of you out of his sight.

I will be back for you, you tell him silently. We are not doing anything alone. We are going to fix this and go back to normal.

Jake says, with the slightest furrow of his brow: I want you to be right, querida.

Yeah, you want to be right, too. It’s a work in progress.

“You ready to go, habibti?” You say to Eliana, gathering up your tote bag and her small pink backpack. Before leaving Tunis, you packed it with her clothes, along with some of her favorite books and a few toys. How strange your life was that you had a go-bag for your five year old. It had been even worse that she recognized her backpack and had gotten ready for your flight before you even explained the trip to see your sister.

She heaves a world-weary sigh and shuffles around to face Jake, lifting up her Anubis plush to kiss his cheek with a soft peck of its nose.

“Anubis likes you,” she tells him, solemn. The jackal at your feet, nothing more than a shimmering mass of sand and shadows, gives Jake a bared-teeth grin of acknowledgement that no one but you can see. She isn’t far off, though you would rather not have Khonshu overhear that his Avatar has a soft spot in a rival god’s heart.

Marc must still be close to the waking consciousness of the body, because Jake nods enthusiastically and generously pats the plush’s head.

“Right, thanks, mate.”

You bite the inside of your cheek to muffle a laugh. His impression is openly expressive and earnest, though not entirely overdramatic. The accent is a dead ringer for Steven’s stereotypical posh English. It makes sense; he has spent many years posing as flashes of Steven to keep Marc unsuspecting of certain blank spots in his memory. Typically, it’s softer errands, such as grocery shopping or doing laundry, but you have heard Jake’s impression of Steven and Marc enough to know when it’s him putting on an act, even if it happens to be a very accurate act.

Jake keeps up his front as Steven, and you wonder if you’re the only one that notices the way he reluctantly passes off Eliana to you, his hands lingering just a moment on her untied shoes before they drop back in his lap, empty.

Eliana nuzzles her face in the crook of your shoulder, her arms wrapping around your neck in loose comfort. She’s exhausted after your morning of travel to London by bus, followed immediately by your museum visit and the impromptu lunch date. When you reach your sister’s house, you know she’ll be grumpy until you can convince her to nap.

Then, you will have to leave her there, and meet up with Marc.

“Thank you,” you say to Jake, though it’s half meant for Marc, too. The two of you can manage to find the scarab and keep it out of the cult’s hands, surely. The quicker you locate the artifact, the quicker you can arrange a real routine for Eliana while you adjust to London life. Or maybe you’ll get lucky and you can go back to Tunis, the three of you, to go back to enjoying the sunshine and frequenting the food stalls in the Medina.

“Pleasure’s all mine, love,” Jake grins, and this time, it’s his own flirtatious smile that makes you grin back.

[dusterbishop]

we can go forever until you wanna sit it out

summary. || you are an amplifier gifted with the ability to strengthen the power of other mutants, a skill that earns you a place on team x. learning to work with them is a sharp curve, especially with the lonesome newest member, logan.

pairing. || logan x f!reader (slow burn)

count. || 2.1k

notes. || warning for character death and violence. this is my first time writing for logan, but i have been bewitched by the tiktok edits.

part one. || part two. || part three. || part four.

You meet Logan when you are young, but he is far older than you initially assume.

Stryker takes point in the introductions, as usual. You linger patiently at his back, just a pace behind, idly scuffing the dirt with the toe of your boot. The air is sour with the stench of stale blood and decay. War isn’t new to you. Neither is recruitment for new soldiers.

“Who’s your little friend?” One of the men jeers, a sharp smile edging the curve of his mouth. This one is Victor Creed, you think, and it’s confirmed when you glance to the other side of the cell and see the other brother sitting back, unimpressed. That one is surely Logan.

From the files that Stryker let you and Zero parse through, you expected more… reaction. He has been tracing their movements for the past two months, and you have seen the bullet list of their service history and grim achievements. They are deadly predators, mutated to efficiently slaughter their prey. Animals, Zero had remarked, and you had silently conceded to that point. Not that you haven’t killed, but you also have human hands that do not morph to tear apart flesh.

“Less who she is, and more what she can do for you both,” Stryker says. On cue, you wander a step closer and set your amplifier alight with a flick of your wrist. You’ve mastered the range just enough to brush the soles of their feet, a fleeting-faint taste of your ability. The hand movement is still an instinct you can’t quash despite the disapproving look Stryker gives you when he sees it.

Victor sucks in a deep, rumbling breath, twitching with a suppressed lunge. Logan doesn’t make a noise, but merely closes his eyes as if a weight has been lifted. Your own body tingles with rippling electricity, every nerve set alight with adrenaline. Like a caffeine rush, you’ll feel the impact of the fall later, but for now you neatly dim your amplifier to a low buzz and shuffle back a half-step to escape their range. The pair slumps against the wall the moment it escapes them. Victor bares his teeth in a grin, and Logan gazes at Stryker with half-lidded eyes. It’s a dark, calculating gaze. Weighing the competition, you think.

“Now that I have your attention,” Stryker says, but you can’t help but notice that both the brothers are looking at you, instead. Their mistake.

Three months later, the brothers once again leave you pinned behind metal-gilded crates with enough gunfire to rattle your teeth in your skull.

“Good God,” you spit out, hauling yourself back behind cover. “Can you stop the self-sacrificial antics for a moment?”

“Sacrifice?” Victor laughs. His skin ripples with regeneration, leaving merely a smear of blood behind as proof of the healed bullet hole. His clawed hand flexes at his side, the elongated tips of his fingers scratching lightly against the floor. “I’m not the one dying, Star.”

You pull a face at the name, but you don’t have the time to argue it. Bullets spray in patterned bursts against your cover, and you have to hunch in on yourself to protect your extremities. The perk of your power is that you can keep your team from burning out and improve their reflexes. The downside is that your power does absolutely nothing in terms of protecting you; your protection is your team.

So you draw in a slow breath, flick your wrist, and summon a surging wave of amplification. Victor surges to his feet with a giddy-mad laugh and delves into the fray. Logan follows in close pursuit behind him, though he takes more care to skirt the edges of the bloodbath, cleaning up the loose ends.

The brothers are an odd addition to this mismatched army of mutant soldiers, though Stryker is pleased with their formidable prowess in battle. In the three months you’ve worked with them, you can see why, and there is a foreboding sense of dread that wells inside you as you listen to the choked-off screams of the enemy ahead. You clench your fists and hold the amplifier steady, silently grateful that for the moment, the only mutants in the room are the ones less likely to tear you apart. No doubt Victor would revel in slicing the flesh from your bones to expose what lies beneath your skin. Logan would be less inclined, perhaps, but you know he follows his brother above all else.

Yes, of course Stryker values their addition to Team X. They are nothing but monsters.

Nothing but monsters, and you have a leash on every one of them.

Stryker has a keen interest in your power, or rather what your power does for the team. You aren’t invulnerable, and you don’t have hyper senses. You don’t teleport or shoot with terrifying accuracy. On the surface, you appear nothing more than a young woman with military training and a nervous tic in your hand.

Underneath the surface, you burn bright.

Your father had been an amateur astronomer. When you were growing up, he would sneak you out to the backyard past your bedtime and the two of you would watch the sky and plot the path of constellations. He was the one that taught you about the sun, the moon, and the stars. My girl, he would say, you are made of the cosmos.

He must be partially right. There’s a staggering core of cosmic energy stored in the cradle of your ribcage. You have spent long moments staring at your own bare reflection in the mirror, hoping to catch a glimpse of it. How do you look so ordinary when there is a blazing sun in your chest?

Yet you do. Stryker had been skeptical of your ability when you first met him, but by that point he had recruited Zero and Bradley, so it only took a little wave of your hand to boost their abilities and prove your silent mutation. Proving it had sealed your fate: under the codename Cosmic, you were an infinite battery pack to the newly forged Team X.

Yet it’s moments like this, when you’re stranded in a rare week of downtime, that you feel like an outsider looking in.

It’s been four days since the job that got you shot at, the same job that let Victor unleash utter havoc, and you’re all going a little stir-crazy while you wait for things to cool down. John Wraith has somehow secured a deck of cards, and he’s managed to wrangle Bradley, Victor, and Wade in a game you don’t follow. The rules seem to change the more they drink and bicker over the play, so you toy with your own can of half-drunk beer and stare out the living room window of your temporary housing. There are stray stars speckled in the night sky, and you feel such a deep-ridden surge of grief at the sight of them.

The arguing gets louder around the kitchen table, and none of them notice when you slip out the front door. The night is hushed when you close the door behind you, and some unknown tension eases from your shoulders with the sky exposed high above. It takes some wandering to properly immerse yourself in the pitch dark, but you find a patch of grass cleared of undergrowth and sprawl out on your back, tucking your hands beneath your head. The safe house that Stryker has your team staying in is hours from the nearest large city, and the sky is clear of light pollution. You can see a scattered sea of stars, all of them twinkling in familiar greeting.

My girl, you are made of the cosmos.

You have to swallow back the sudden swell of emotion in your throat. It’s quiet this far from the house. Without any heightened senses, you can’t hear anything other than the soft rustle of the wildlife shuffling through the trees. It’s lonely, but not in the way that you felt lonely sitting in that room with the rest of the team. Their abilities serve them; your ability just makes them more.

You’re reminded of that fact in a fierce strike of terror when a figure appears at the edge of the clearing, moving too quiet for your human hearing to pick up. You bolt upright, curling your hands into fists, all too aware of your pitiful human strength and basic military training. It would do nothing against a mutant intent on rending you apart.

“Thought you were asleep,” Logan grunts, rubbing a hand over his chest in discomfort. The adrenaline from his sudden appearance spiked your amplifier, and you have to focus on leveling your breathing as you slowly retract your power back to your core. “Took you too long to notice me.”

“You were in your room,” you accuse. It’s mostly the fear driving the annoyance in your tone, but you don’t have the patience for an apology. “I wasn’t expecting to see you lurking in the woods.”

The clearing is half-lit by the light of the moon, though Logan lingers near the edges. He’s wearing a short-sleeve white shirt that clings to the curve of his torso, the muscled tone of his arms flexing as he crosses them over his chest. You can barely make out the way he raises a brow at your choice of words, his profile half-shadowed.

“Lurking,” he repeats, almost amused. “Says the stargazer.”

“Cosmic,” you remind him. “Comes with the territory.”

“What, you charge them, too?” You don’t expect him to step closer, but he does. In the moonlight, the tousled curl of his hair softens the incredulous look he’s giving you. There isn’t the same degree of mocking like the kind you would expect from Victor, but then again, you haven’t spoken to Logan much. He’s content to focus on the work rather than the idle play. Unlike Zero, however, there isn’t the same air of arrogant distaste.

He almost seems… ordinary.

“Funny,” you say dryly. You shuffle your weight and lay back down in the grass, pointedly ignoring the low chuckle he gives at your exasperation. There’s a kernel of truth stuck in your throat, so you blurt out, “I think they charge me.”

“Right,” Logan says, his tone decidedly skeptical. “And I get my claws charged up by sunshine and rainbows.”

You shoot him a glare. “I’m serious.”

“So I am, bub.”

He takes another step from the edge of the clearing. He’s closer now, enough that he looms over you. The stars speckle the sky above his head in a crown of twinkling light, and you flex your fingers, silently summoning the rush of energy that the sight of the sky gives you. Logan shivers, cursing under his breath, though he doesn’t back away.

He takes a step closer, nudging your hip with the toe of his boot. His posture doesn’t change, but he’s flexing his fingers into a fist, almost subconsciously. You wonder how it feels for him, to have his bones shift and extend into claw-like weapons. The first time you watched him kill, you grimaced at the sight of his hands. The sharpened claws of Victor’s nails were tame in comparison to the mutation that rearranged Logan’s skeleton.

You’ve never seen any indication that his ability hurts him, yet the way he flexes his hands now makes you wonder. He doesn’t speak for a long moment, only staring down at you with that unapproachable expression. You wonder, too, if he’s out here for the same reason that you are. Surely not; you’ve seen the way he follows Victor, and the way Victor turns to him, expectant in battle. They are tied together in a way that reminds you of a hangman’s noose.

“Sunshine, huh?” You say. “Suits your happy personality.”

“Like you know a fucking thing about me,” he says, and the laugh trailing the end of that sentence is far from amused. When he steps back, you almost miss the warmth of his presence filling the sky above. “Pay attention before you get yourself killed.”

“I’ve seen enough,” you shoot back, stung by the sudden seethe of his tone. You sit up to properly glare at him, but he’s already turned and heading back into the darkness of the woods. You call to his retreating back, “You and that brother of yours are gonna get the wrong people hurt.”

“Save the altruism for someone else,” he calls over his shoulder, and then he’s gone.

You glare up at the sky instead. The yawning black abyss above you feels lonelier than ever.

[dusterbishop]

i hear you call my name (and it feels like home)

summary. || three timelines, you have watched remy lebeau die. you didn't believe you would earn a fourth chance to save him until you find a variant with no memory of his past, lost in a void of existence.

pairing. || gambit x f!reader (past relationship with current enemies-to-lovers)

count. || 6.4k

notes. || posted on ao3 here. warning for character death and violence. this is the end! thank you all for the lovely words of support, it means so much that you all loved this duo as much as i do. i have ideas of oneshots for the future, but for now, i leave you all with this!

part one. || part two. || part three. || part four.

Your ears are ringing.

Awareness floods you in slow, uneven strokes. You can hear the roar of battle buzzing through the fog in your mind, guttural screams of pain cutting through in sharp starbursts. There’s a staff in your right hand, and you spasm your grip on it, testing its weight.

It is Remy’s.

Once, that staff had been too heavy for you to properly swing around. He had watched you practice with a pained grimace for a week before he surprised you with your own to train with. The two of you were nothing more than colleagues at that point, simply two mismatched X-Men crossing paths by sheer fate. Until he had handed you your own staff, its weight balanced with delicate perfection in the palm of your hand, and showed you how to use it.

You had never told him that you only used the staff because you could see it in every timeline, a slow conversion of your fighting style across lifetimes. Not every life you lived shared Remy, but his influence still lingered at the edges, seeping in like ink. Fighting with a staff, learning to pick locks, using sleight of hand to swap items from timelines with ease. It was all an extension of your life with Remy. Just echoes, over and over, spreading out in rippling waves.

Echoes, which could never replace the thrill that sparks your attention when a blazing playing card whizzes past your ear. There’s a muffled explosion as the card makes contact with the enemy swinging for your head, and you gracefully sidestep the half-dead man that staggers into a collapsed pile at your feet.

“Watch where you goin’, mon coeur,” Gambit calls. Another whistling hum of kinetic energy, another flash of blazing purple as he throws another card and cuts down another blank faced enemy. The base that Nova commands has a strangely illusive layout, and the war-starved bodies seem like an endless, writhing thing to overcome.

Time is a limited resource, after all. You can taste it just as surely as the blood in the back of your mouth.

“Maybe I’m too distracted watching something else,” you call back. You don’t take the time to see the expression on his face, but you hear his delighted laugh before he starts slinging explosives again. It’s easy to fall into battle. Even easier while you’re wearing your old suit, and the fabric is soft and well-worn just as you remember it. The clothes you wore in the Void were fine for travel, but you felt strangely out of place last night watching Remy adjusting his coat for the upcoming battle.

You are one of the X-Men, technically. It’s been more than a lifetime since you felt like one, but you know their colors and their mission. The suit always did feel more like a formality. There is nothing that could prevent you from fighting for people who cannot protect themselves. Everyone else only has one life, and you have an infinity of them. The gold and blue of your suit is meant to inspire hope for the people you are defending, not to boast about your position, and yet Remy had stuttered mid-sentence when he turned to see you suddenly dressed in your original suit, prepared for battle.

Been a’while since Gambit seen you wit’ those colors. Though, Gambit t’inks you look better out of ‘em, too...

“Pot callin’ the kettle black,” Gambit says. He’s closer, now, as if magnetized to the orbit of your battleground. You smash the skull of a man trying to catch a cheapshot to Gambit’s ribs, and Gambit slips an explosive card into the pocket of the man’s coat for good measure. Briefly, his hand catches the curve of your elbow, brushing his fingers over the pulse-point. Even through the sleeve of your suit, you can almost feel the heat of his skin, searing bone-deep.

“Just calling it as I see it, Cajun,” you say. It doesn’t sound as breathless as you feel. Gambit still has that infuriatingly pleased look on his face, though, so you give him a half-hearted shove with a raised brow. “Save the world, remember?”

“Mais la, all bluff no play,” he complains. “S’il vous plait, mon coeur —”

Time slips.

One moment, you take the chance to catch your breath, falling all-too-easy to the lure of sparring with Remy. The next moment, you’re on the ground. There’s blood beneath you, pooling under your head, dripping from your nose and down to the hard-packed soil.

“Remy,” you choke out. Your ears are ringing with echoes of voices, though you assume it’s across timelines based on the range of emotions. You can hear crying as soul-wrenching as fresh grief, and laughing as bright as bells. It’s like picking up a landline and hearing a conversation you’re only privy to as a passing voyeur.

You blink away some of the dirt and sweat stinging your eyes. You’re still on the ground. Something weighty and warm is settled over your back, tucked into the curve of your sides. The scent of smoke and cologne curls around you as familiar as the back of your hand.

Remy draped his coat over you. You spit a wad of bloodied saliva onto the ground, grimacing at the dark thickness. How long have you been out? You don’t remember charging up to leave the timeline.

Even worse, you don’t remember going anywhere. Time may change around you, but your mind keeps itself sharp with a constant awareness. Even when you would travel time in your sleep, you knew you were moving based on the pressure changing in the air. There had been no pressure change, this time. Only standing with Gambit, teasing him in the way that blazed adrenaline through your veins. Then, it is you laying on the ground, curled up underneath his coat, tasting blood.

You blink again. You think you’re shivering, or maybe you’re trembling, because you aren’t cold. That hazy, all-consuming fever pulses across your skin in waves, burning across your every nerve. It takes effort to turn your head just a fraction, searching the scattered battlefield. You’re still in Nova’s compound. You can see Blade and Elektra distracting any enemy seeking the weaker prey, luring them away from where you lay.

It had taken two more days before you and Gambit had met back up with the resistance. Initially, you had been wary of the strange collection of mutants, reflecting their own suspicion of you back like a mirror image. Yet they had seemed relieved that Gambit was back unharmed.

Now, far past the initial skepticism of your arrival, they treat you with the same consideration they give Gambit.

Though Gambit is… the same, and yet he’s more. The way he fights is far different than the way he did during the days when you both worked with the X-Men. He doesn’t linger near the boundaries of the fight anymore. You used to breathe easier knowing he had been prowling the edges of a fight with his cards at the ready, always protecting your back.

Now, when he fights in the Void, he storms the battlefield as a raging violet-blaze tempest. You find him easily through the crowded clusters of skirmishes, his staff humming with kinetic charge. He wields a handful of cards with careful scarcity, and you know it’s because you have his coat draped over you, holding all of his extra ammo.

He is going to get himself killed.

That thought propels you into motion. Your arms tremble as you push yourself to sit up, the back of your mouth filling with blood and nauseating saliva. It hurts to breathe. It feels like there is a shard of glass lodged in your ribs, cutting up your insides. The only blood you can sense is the slow drip from your lips, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t damage you can’t see yet. Something in your being is dismantling in slow, even strokes, cast adrift from the timelines and stranded in the Void.

One of Nova’s henchmen gets too close to Remy and sideswipes him. The soft-muted grunt of pain from Remy sends a chilling lance of fear through your gut, though before you can move, Remy is already turning and taking down the enemy with a swift twirl of his staff.

They are going to kill him if you don’t get him out. You know it, and it hurts so much to move, but you push yourself to your feet with a strangled whine of frustration. Of all the times for your body to fail you, it has to be now, when Remy is exposed to an entire base of people trying to kill him.

His coat is a familiar weight over your shoulders, but that doesn’t quell the violent shiver that runs through you. Neither does it stop the sudden rush of dizzying pain, or the way you have to hunch over and spit out blood onto the dirt. No time. You don’t have any time.

“Remy,” you call out. You fumble to wipe away the blood dripping down your chin just as he turns at the sound of your voice, his face bright with relief. He doesn’t notice the blood. He moves quickly through the battlefield nonetheless, wrapping an arm over the shuddering arch of your shoulders.

“ Mon coeur,” he says, and he must see something in your face that makes him hesitate. “Enjoy your nap, chér ?”

You suck in a sharp breath. It’s always ‘chér ’ when he doesn’t know which version you are.

“Still with you, LeBeau,” you tell him. Your hand reaches up to cradle the curve of his jaw. He’s buzzing with energy beneath your touch, but it’s the simmering fire in his eyes as he gazes back at you that makes you feel set alight.

“Wanna play?” He says softly. One arm is still slung protectively over your back, but he uses his free hand to fasten his coat tighter over your shoulders, his hand lingering at the vulnerable curve of your throat. “I deal you in, mon coeur.”

You’re reluctant to let him go, so you pull him in and press a chaste kiss to his mouth. You don’t let him go deeper than that so he doesn’t taste the blood, even if there’s a savage wanting in your gut to sink deep into his embrace and never resurface. It’s not fair, you think, that you finally found him only to lose him all over again.

“Deal me in, Cajun,” you whisper to him. His fingers drop from the hollow of your collarbone to the seam of his coat sleeve, drawing a card. He flickers it between his fingers to show you his dealt hand — the ace of hearts — before it disappears into the nothingness of time. You let Remy press another kiss to your mouth, and you have to close your eyes to fight back the burn of tears. Even with your eyes closed, you can hear the hoarseness in his voice when he pulls back.

"You an' me, chér, couple'a aces, non?" 

You have to turn your head to hide a sad smile. "A matched pair."

Like that, the two of you separate. He goes into the fray of battle, the air whirring violently with charged energy, and you step back into the shadow, pulling your ace of hearts from the timeline. You have caught nothing but glimpses of Nova since you arrived, but you can feel her presence at the edges of your mind, probing for weakness. 

So you look weak. It’s easy to slouch against the wall, your breathing coming in labored pants, the sleeve of your X-Men suit streaked red with the blood you keep wiping from your chin. Hurt prey is weaker, after all. You know what she must see when she sees you so far from Remy’s orbit: an injured fawn ripened for the kill.

“Don’ ya leave now, the fun just startin’,” Remy laughs. He sweeps his staff in a wide arc, warding off the enemies crowding closer to his position, but he only has eyes for you. He’s watching you, and you know the moment she arrives by the way his eyes harden with venomous hatred.

“Indeed,” Nova says. Her presence is a sudden, harsh strike to your mind. You have to grit your teeth to muffle your shocked gasp. Her hand is lax around your throat, but you are all too aware of the hand gently caressing the back of your skull. You can hear the smile in her voice when she whispers in your ear, “I’ve never seen something like you.”

“Took the words right out of my mouth,” you say. The air whirs in quiet contention around you,  but you’re more focused on the card still clutched in your hand. Come on, come on...

“You’re a little wanderer, aren’t you,” she muses. She runs her fingers through the locks of your hair with gentle fingertips, and it takes all of your self control not to spasm and jolt out of her touch. You clench your empty hands tightly, instead, and try not to stare at Remy when he suddenly tucks his hand into a tight fist, purple light buzzing ravenously through the tight clench of his fingers.

“What are you doing running with the swamp rats, hm?” Nova strokes your head again. “You don’t seem like one of their merry band of misfits.”

Remy makes an indignant sound at that, and just as Nova looks to him, the light in his hand dies to nothingness.

“His name is Gambit,” you say. The playing card in your hand whirs with pitched fervor. Almost there. “Make sure you remember that.”

Time condenses to your will, and you’re looking right at Remy when the ace of hearts detonates, rippling a shockwave through you and Nova. Kinetic energy consumes you in a wildfire, burning through the flesh of your body with fervent hunger. You see the ache of distraught cross his face, and then there is only the movement of timelines shifting in place, carrying you through lifetimes, blurring the world around you into a wash of muddled watercolors.

When you blink, the world rights itself.

When you breathe in, settling back into a body escaped unharmed, you see Remy fall.

“No!” You shout. Or perhaps it is a whisper. Or perhaps it is spread across every timeline, every particle of your being spread thin and calling out in pained fury. You aren’t sure of anything except the way Remy twists, losing grip of his staff, and collapsing to the ground.

A wordless scream of rage tears through you. You can hear its echo filling the air as you yank time into a heel, drawing yourself across the expanse of the field in moments. You aren’t sure where the others are, or if Nova truly perished in the kinetic explosion as you intended. All you can see is Remy, lying in motionless rigor, and the man that took the shot that put him down.

Time scrambles in your mind, but you reach your destination faster than the man can draw his weapon at you. Your hands take his head in a vice grip, the tips of your gloved fingers digging harshly into his dirt-streaked skin.

“How dare you,” you snarl. If you had the chance, you would tear him through time until he disintegrated. You break his neck instead, the sickening crack of his bone fading from your attention the moment you feel his body slip from your grasp. You don’t manipulate time to fall to your knees by Remy’s side, but the space between movements is a blur you don’t care to investigate.

“Remy,” you half-sob. You reach out and grasp his shoulder, turning him over onto his back, and nearly sob again in relief when you see him squinting back at you with dazed annoyance.

“Lucky strike,” he mutters. Your hand flutters down to brush against his side, your heart seizing at the grimace on his face. The warmth of blood against your fingers spreads a numbness through your gut. You only press your hand firmly to the wound, gritting your teeth against the roaring fury building in your throat.

“What happened to ‘the house always wins’?” You snap at him instead. The blood is sticky and warm, and it won’t be staunched by the pressure of your hand alone. He’s going to bleed out.

“Raising the bet,” Remy grunts. There’s a sheen of sweat across his brow, but it’s the ashen pallor of his skin that makes your chest tighten with panic. God, you’re going to lose him.

“I hate you,” you whisper. You hate the Void. You hate Nova, and her violent-driven henchmen. You hate yourself, most of all, for doing this to him. For not being able to do more.

“Tha’ sounds more like love than hate, mon coeur.”

“Just playing the odds,” you bite out. He blinks at you, sluggish, and you realize exactly what you have to do. It’s the only thing you can do for him. You draw your hand back from his side and try not to gag on the smell of it permeating the air. There’s a steady puddle beneath him, soaking the knees of your suit, but you hardly feel it. You can’t feel anything at all, in fact.

Just that whirring buzz of time, and the slowly approaching footsteps of Cassandra Nova coming up behind you.

“Go ahead, Remy,” you breathe. The timeline whirs to life beneath your palms, a composed symphony to the crackling buzz of kinetic energy. You cup his face, thumbs smoothing away the dust beneath his blackened eyes, and you will him to live.

He reaches up to try and catch your wrists. There’s that furrow in his brow, again, like he’s preparing to curse you out for this. He’s a pulsing livewire of humming energy in your hands, simmering with an explosive potential. If he stays here, he will be nothing more than a husk. Dying like a goddamn hero, slaughtered like a martyr upon the altar, just to give you the chance to take down Nova.

So you imagine him at your apartment, in your bed, instead. Tucked under the blankets, his hair mussed from sleep. Figaro curled up on his chest, purring his strange rattling hum, the other two boys stretched out beside him. The world is quiet, and safe. Nothing is there to hurt him.

The timeline sings in your hands. You want to kiss him, but you don’t. Kissing him will feel like goodbye, and you don’t think you could bear the thought of it, not right now. Not before you finish taking down Nova.

Your gaze locks with his. You can see the moment he realizes that you aren’t going with him. The annoyance at being forced to take the retreat cracks out of his expression with sharp, desperate panic. His hands nearly catch you at the wrist, his fingertips brushing against the sleeve of your coat, but then he’s gone. You stare down at the dirt where he once was, fighting to keep your breathing steady. He’s safe.

At least, you tell yourself, one of you made it home.

Yet it still feels like a gaping wound in your side. You betrayed him to save him.

“Touching,” Nova remarks. You can’t bring yourself to move. You’re still kneeling in the remains of Remy’s blood when she strikes you.

The world flickers in and out of focus, spinning in rampant circles. Distantly, you’re aware of your legs kicking weakly in the air, your hands scrabbling desperately at your throat to ease the choking grip she has you in. Except she isn’t touching you, not with her hands.

No, she’s standing just out of arm's reach, smiling like a sphynx.

“I have seen so many variants,” she says idly. You’re choking on nothing, fighting the headache rending through your temples. “There’s been some Jean Grays, a few Rogues. More than a few Gambits. Many, many Deadpools.”

“And yet,” she continues. “I have never found more than one of you.”

The release of the grip she has on your throat makes you gasp out a cry, sucking in air with deep, hoarse wheezing. You hardly feel the impact of your body collapsing to the ground, too relieved in the taste of air. You rub at your throat with shaking fingers, trying to erase the feeling of her grip crushing your windpipe.

“That isn’t the strangest part, however.”

You know where this is going. You close your eyes.

“I could feel you,” she shifts closer to you, but you don’t have the energy to flinch and create distance between the two of you. “In your mind, you are nothing but fragments.”

“Wayfarer,” you whisper. It comes out in a croak, but you are far beyond caring. “I am everywhere and everything.”

“Broken,” she agrees. You open your eyes at that. She looks vindicated, as if admitting your ability has only made you weaker. You suppose, hunched over and wheezing, you don’t look as threatening as you used to during your X-Men days. You must look like nothing but bleeding prey.

Good, you think. You smile at her with bloodied teeth. “Broken things are meant to hurt, you know.”

Like shuffling a deck of cards, you let time flutter through your hands, staggering into a timeline version of yourself where you can breathe without choking. Your body follows the commands of your mind with elegant obedience.

Your hands meet their mark, and latch onto Nova tight enough to turn your knuckles pale. The pair of playing cards pressed against each of your palms sizzle with hunger where they make contact with her body.

Pain lances through your skull, exploding into brilliant light behind your eyes. You think your hands are still clutching onto Nova, but you cannot feel them. The world is bright violet, time shuffling with a charged whir. The kinetic energy ripples down your hands in great, staggering waves, a faint prickle of pain among the agony of time rendering itself apart around you.

Nova is screaming. Distantly, you feel her hands pulling at you, yanking at the lapels of Remy’s coat, hitting your face. She must be trying to delve into your mind. She cannot catch you, though. You are plummeting through every timeline, shuffling from one version of yourself to the next, then the next, then the next. Over and over. Over, and over, and over.

Shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull — 

You think you let go of her.

— shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull — 

No, it’s not your hands that have let go. Your arms are shuddering through time, but your hands keep locked onto her, holding her steady, burning violet. You haven’t let her go, but your body is being torn into pieces.

— shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull — 

Nova isn’t screaming anymore.

— shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull — 

You are.

— shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull — 

You can’t hear it over the roaring of time rushing through you, but you can feel your throat blazing, screaming through every timeline, every version of yourself. This must be what dying feels like. It is infinite across all time. There is no other way out.

— shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull — 

Her body dissolves with slow tendrils of violet light creeping beneath the exposed flesh, tracing whirls with the lines of her veins and arteries. It consumes her from the inside, spreading out with a meticulous, parasitic intensity.

— shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull — 

Remy’s power consumes you, too. You see the light creep up your wrists, then your arms, then your shoulders. You can feel its warmth down to your bones. It almost feels, strangely, like it’s him hugging you. It feels like it did last night, tangled in his arms beneath the sheets, your ear pressed to his chest to listen to the rhythm of his heart.

— shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull — 

You wonder, distantly, if his power is trying to keep your body together. The charge of kinetic energy is concentrated in your hands, but you can still feel the heat of it pooling in the pit of your stomach and scorching the back of your mouth. Remy had been dismissive when you asked him what it felt like to charge something, though you figure he had been exasperated by your own explanation of your ability. You doubt he would have known what it felt like to be torn asunder with only the kinetic lightning crackling through him.

— shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull — 

You think about Remy, for a moment. You think about the apartment that you both signed the lease on, furnished with a thief’s eye of luxury, cluttered with the little bits of memorabilia and creature comforts you curated over the years. You think about the cats that Remy dotes on, your own cats by marriage, all curled up in their favorite spots around the two of you. You think about the couch that you had teased Remy about for the price, only for him to turn around and gloat about the amount of naps you took on it. You think about the movie nights with you two intertwined on that couch, the cats pressed into your sides, the room dim-lit and safe.

— shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull — 

You think about how you would like to do that, again. To be able to sit on the couch with your husband and watch a movie. To be with Remy, and not be caught in this web of unraveling agony.

— shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull, shuffle, draw, pull — 

Like a loose thread, you unravel.

Shuffle.

It starts in your hands, with your fingertips, and it spreads from there.

Draw.

Your eyesight goes last.

Pull.

You see Remy in every lifetime, looking at you, his outline glimmering with that kinetic violet light. His mouth is moving. It almost looks like your name.

Shuffle…

Nothing comes to your mind. Everything comes into pitch black.

Shuffle…

Your hands are empty.

Shuffle…

Time is empty, now absent when it once was vast. You had been infinite, once. Like time, you had been endless.

Shuffle…

You had been lost before you knew what it felt like to be seen. You could never be sure what timeline was originally yours before you switched them. Even the smallest of details could escape your attention if you weren’t looking for it. At a certain point, you realized you had to choose a life to claim as yours and stop wandering. Even a Wayfarer needed an anchor to call home for when it was time to rest.

Draw.

You had wandered for a long time. Years, perhaps, though your physical bodies changed shape and form in ways you couldn’t predict. The face in the mirror had never been home, anyway. There were too many genetic variables to each timeline to preserve the way you looked. Your body was merely a temporary housing for your time-stepping mind. A body was not an anchor. It was simply a tool to be used and discarded.

Pull.

An anchor needs to be constant. It needs to be something that will not retreat when time grows teeth and begins to hurt. It needs to be loyal to the cause. It needs to be kind, deep down, even if the surface is skin-deep careless. It needs to make you feel safe.

It’s… warm. Soft.

You bury your face deeper into the pillow with a long, blissful sigh. You will never regret insisting that you splurge and spend the extra money on a memory foam mattress. It feels like floating in the clouds.

A soft, questioning mmrph rumbles next to your ear. It’s your only warning before a small, wet nose presses to your temple. You know it’s Oliver by the way he starts to knead at the pillow next to your head, purring a roaring chorus. There’s another weight on your legs, pinning them down, and a third is nestled into your side. Remy must be up, already, if they’re all stuck to you for warmth.

“Did your father abandon us again, boys?” You mumble sleepily. Oliver purrs louder at the sound of your voice. You can feel the weight on your legs shift, no doubt being that it’s Lucifer standing up to stretch before he starts to walk up the length of your body. He’s purring, too, though he resettles on the spot between your shoulder blades, the hum of his purr radiating across your back. Figaro doesn’t grace you with an acknowledgement, but neither does he unfurl himself from his spot next to your side.

Warm, soft, and safely nestled amongst your cats. It’s nearly heaven. You end up half-dozing back off, lulled to sleep by the purring next to your ear. You feel like you haven’t slept in a lifetime.

You don’t hear the door open, though you know something is wrong by the way Figaro leaps to attention and Oliver’s purr stutters to a stop.

When you open your eyes, it’s half-lit by the morning sun. It must be closer to noon than the time that you usually wake to train. Any trace of lingering sleep drifts away when the bedroom door creeps open with its usual squall of hinges.

You smile and twist to look over your shoulder, dislodging Lucifer despite his soft sound of discontent, and yawn, “Morning. I think.”

Remy is posed in the doorway. Your next words die in your throat as you see the look on his face, the staff still gripped tightly in his hand. He’s dressed in his usual armor, not his civilian clothing like you expected. His hair is longer, tied back carelessly from his face, flyaway strands curling around his temples. His eyes are near-black, both through his irises and the dark shadows collecting beneath them.

He looks like he has spent years surviving an apocalypse.

“Jesus, Remy,” you breathe. You’re sitting up in an instant, one hand out reaching towards him. His armor is dust-streaked and worn from battle. “Are you hurt?”

“Where’d you go, chér?” He rasps. His face is still utterly, terrifyingly still. You have never seen him at the brink of collapse like this, before. He looks like he wants to step further in the room, his hand twitching with a nervous tic of adrenaline, but he stays stock-still. Waiting for you.

“Nowhere,” you say softly. “I’ve been in bed with the boys, love.”

You have to resist the urge to spring out of bed and run your hands along his body to look for any sign of injury. You aren’t entirely sure what’s gotten into him, but if he’s hallucinating or delirious, you should probably reach out to the other X-Men. Maybe the professor would know why Remy’s in full gear and looking battle-worn at this hour. Why would he go without waking you first?

Remy wavers. He looks heartsick. “Don’ lie t’me, chér.”

“Never,” you agree. You offer the spot next to you in bed with a half-pleading, half-alluring gesture. “Come here. You look like hell, Remy.”

“You…” he starts, then stops. Abruptly, he drops his staff with a rattling thud. Within three strides, he’s in your arms, melting into your embrace. You clutch at him just as fiercely, burying your nose into the crown of his hair. He smells like smoke and dust, but there’s no indication of blood and pain. He simply sags in your grip, his breathing quick and unsteady against your collarbone. His fingers curl weakly into the back of your nightshirt, as if that’s all the strength he can muster.

He’s mumbling, even with his face pressed tightly to the curve of your throat, but you can’t make out much more than your name, over and over.

“Shh, Remy, I’m right here with you,” you whisper against his crown. With a free hand, you reach up to pull out the elastic band holding up his hair, letting it fall in uneven waves. When was the last time he took care of himself? Your Remy loved to indulge in fine-smelling soaps and lavish hair routines, surrounding himself in a luxury he earned himself. His appearance was just as much armor as his coat was. You had never been fooled by his demeanor: his weapon of charm was just as sharply honed as his weapon of playing cards.

Yet it’s the length of his hair that sours the back of your throat with nausea. You run your fingers through it, slowly massaging his scalp in the way that makes him pliant and sleepy. It’s not that you haven’t seen Remy with long hair before; it’s simply the fact that you haven’t seen him with long hair in years. Just last night, his hair had been just long enough to curl at the nape of his neck. You had run your fingers through it and mentioned a haircut, and he had been a deadweight in your lap, humming sleepily in acknowledgement.

You swallow thickly. Either this is not the same Remy you went to sleep next to the night before… or you are missing time.

“You should take a bath, love,” you murmur, gently scratching his scalp. You can feel smudged wetness on the collar of your nightshirt from tears, though he hasn’t made a sound other than a few deep, unsteady breaths. Back when you first got together during missions, the shower was the first place you two could unwind and start to sort through your fading adrenaline rush.

He pulls back from your embrace, just a little, and every word of encouragement dies in your throat at the look on his face. Rage. Betrayal.

Heartbreak.

“You been gon’ awhile, chér,” he says. It’s not an accusation, but there’s a simmering anger beneath that matter-of-fact tone. It’s always ‘chér’ when he doesn’t know which version you are. His eyes burn through you, intent on stripping you raw. You wonder what answers he could possibly expect from you. If it’s answers he wants at all, or rather an apology.

You have to offer him something.

“I —”

“Gambit go lookin’ for you,” he laughs, mirthless. “Got him spending two years lookin’ and you jus’ show up in bed. Like nothin’ happen.”

Two years. There’s a small itch in the back of your mind, like the whisper of a memory raking its claws down your back. There had been an unraveling. Utter destruction. Then it had been you here, you waking up in bed as if nothing had happened.

You blink back at him, struck speechless. You don’t have to offer a word, though, because there’s true anger in his eyes, now.

“I go to de Void,” he says. “I t’ink that’s what it was. Nothin’ left there. Dere’s no life around, hein? Mais, non, not even my wife, only the dead. Ev’rybody dead.”

 His eyes close as if he can ward away the images tormenting his memories. You’re grateful that he can’t see the way your face crumples at that. He went back for you. He had survived the wound, and he found a way back to come for you.

And he had found nothing but death.

“You’re such an idiot,” you choke out. His eyes snap open at that, but you merely cup his face in your hands and draw him in to bump your forehead against his, sucking in a shuddering breath. He is warm and alive under your touch. You didn’t think you could touch him like this again when Nova had been standing above you, prepared to tear you in shreds. “I sent you ahead, but I was coming with you.”

“We stay together,” he tells you. There’s a strain in his voice just as painful as yours, but the way he reaches up to swipe away a stray tear from your cheek with his thumb is careful. As if he’s marveling that he has the chance to touch you at all. “Mais la, don’ tell Gambit he wrote up those vows for nothin’, Mrs. LeBeau.”

“Matched pair,” you whisper back.

“Couple’a aces,” he agrees, and he kisses you just as gently as he wiped away your tears, as if you have all the time in the world.

[dusterbishop]

you believe me like a god (i'll destroy you like i am)

summary. || three timelines, you have watched remy lebeau die. you didn't believe you would earn a fourth chance to save him until you find a variant with no memory of his past, lost in a void of existence.

pairing. || gambit x f!reader (past relationship with current enemies-to-lovers)

count. || 3.8k

notes. || posted on ao3 here. warning for character death and violence. once again, i'm so grateful for the likes and kind words! it means a lot to me! this chapter is long, but the next one is going to be heavy and i needed to get it all out here.

part one. || part two. || part three.

Come’on, chér, just hold on.

Playing the odds?

Non, I’m bettin’ all on you.

Gambit talks for a long, long time. He tells you about Cassandra Nova, and the Resistance's intent to cripple her center of operations. He tells you about the other mutants he allied himself with. He tells you about the climate of the Void, which is dry and barren and desolate. He tells you about his liquor collection, even as he laments how he won’t be able to indulge in it for a while.

This version of him is dead-set on a suicide mission, you quickly realize. Nova and her power sounds far beyond the scope of Gambit’s abilities, and you doubt his allies could overtake her, either. They are all hopelessly outmatched.

Then again, they are also decaying in the Void. Void is a good name for it; the earth is desolate and menacing as the pair of you travel. Your powers flicker at the edge of your vision in a blurry mirage of recollection, like a film played backwards. You can taste the metallic tinge of blood in the back of your throat. Your body still simmers with feverish fatigue, even though you are five days deep into this timeline. You haven’t been using your abilities beyond necessity, but each time you wonder what would happen if your intended time-object doesn’t appear at the command.

C’mon, Wildcard, don’ get skittish on me now.

Just deal me in, Cajun.

They are all outmatched on their own. You stare at the broad expanse of Gambit’s back as you walk, taking in the way he walks over the uneven terrain, the idle twirl of his bo staff slung lax in his hand. The travel has worn him down at the edges; his hair is mussed and dirt-streaked, and his coat is weighted and torn at the hem. Five days of trekking through the daylight and camping through the night has taken a toll on his body, but he still hums to himself as you both walk.

You know this song. It’s the one Tante Mattie would sing to him when he was young and couldn’t sleep. Or at least, that’s what your Remy told you. Perhaps this version of Remy LeBeau found it through another source. You can’t imagine the man in front of you as a little boy needing comfort.

No. That isn’t quite true. You have seen photos of a younger Remy while visiting New Orleans, much to his dramatic announcements of utter embarrassment, and you never forgot just how small he seemed. How unfair that his life was wrought with pain and fear, even as that little boy, just for the color of his eyes. Abandoned by one family only to be raised in crime with another.

You know what your Remy went through. You just can’t bear to think about what this one has suffered with. Not now. Maybe not ever considering the terror Nova has been spreading across the Void.

“Okay,” you say suddenly. It’s nearly nightfall. You should find a place to settle for the night, then scrounge up enough from your rations to feed his burning metabolism and soothe the disquiet ache in your stomach. Despite the fever, you should eat something of substance even if the thought alone makes you feel nauseous.

“Go’on, chér,” Gambit says. He’s eyeing the horizon with a calculating look, no doubt thinking the very same thing you are. You don’t know how far the makeshift headquarters are for the rebel cause, but you can figure it’s still some ways off by the frown on his face. Just how far did he go wandering alone? You don’t allow yourself to wonder why he seemed to be looking for you, either. That would lead to more questions than your mind could handle.

“You want me to fight Nova,” you say. That catches his attention. He jolts as if you charged him with his own kinetic wave, his pitch-dark eyes sliding to lock on yours. He looks like he’s ready to argue, or maybe to sweet-talk, so you add, “I’ll do it. Fight her.”

“Suicide, chér?” His mouth is twisted unhappily. “Nobody tell you to do that.”

“Didn’t need you to, Cajun,” you shoot back. “No other reason for you to go hunting across the Void for me.”

“Mebbe,” he drawls out, his smile temptingly coy, “Gambit like what he sees.”

You don’t take the bait. “I can kill her, but where does that leave you? All of you?”

His smile grows just a little brighter at the misstep. It takes every nerve in your body to resist the urge to sigh in exasperation. You don’t have to remind him you care about his wellbeing. This Gambit isn’t yours to protect.

“Don’ worry ‘bout us, chér,” he says, nearly a purr. It sends a thrill down to the base of your spine. “We talk it out, eh? Our hand t’deal.”

“With a suicide mission?” Your laugh is strained. “You really know how to raise the bet, Cajun.”

“Playing de odds,” he agrees. In the half-light of the sinking sun on the horizon, his profile is cast in shadows, and yet you can see the faintest twitch in his mouth. Almost a frown. Then he turns his face away from you entirely, hiding back behind the facade of his relaxed shoulders. “We gonna get out dis place.”

He sounds so sure that you say nothing, taking in the moment of staring at the setting sun. It would be much easier to leave entirely, even with the heaviness of your limbs from the fever. Who knows how much time you have left in this place? Something about the timeline here has you untethered from reality. You keep swallowing back the taste of blood.

Part of you almost tells Gambit, right then, that you don’t think you have time to talk about plans. You can’t just wait for the right opportunity to land in your lap like a wounded bird.

But you don’t. The two of you quietly settle down around a fire and divide your meager rations. It’s a strange collection of his preferences with the oddity of your Void self’s miscellaneous tastes. It’s an unspoken agreement to swap the night watch while the other is asleep. Gambit takes the first watch. You pretend to sleep curled next to the heat of the fire, your mind flashing through broken images of different times, like watching broken sunlight filter in from under the surface of the ocean.

Remy used to think it odd that you didn’t dream. You would joke to him that you had enough of dreaming when you found him. Still, some part of you feels a hollow curiosity towards the thought of dreaming. How could your mind conjure images of desires only for you to wake up without them? There was never a time that you could remember where you didn’t just wave your hand and hold the world in your palm.

Yet the memories that flicker across your mind from the darkness behind your closed eyelids are strangely nostalgic. Thwarting a burglary attempt as your mutant debut, celebrating Jubilee’s birthday at the mansion, visiting New Orleans for the first time as a LeBeau. Waking up to Remy’s arm slung over your waist as if he was trying to keep you secured in this timeline, even as your mind traveled right in plain sight, gone beyond his reach.

It rends a heart-wrenching ache in your chest. You have to fight to keep your breathing steady. The memories are still there, rushing past you quickly enough to make you dizzy.

Marrying Remy and nearly missing on your cue to kiss because you were staring up at his eyes. Desperately reaching out to him as your power stuttered, nearly sending you tumbling over the edge of the roof. Discreet shuffling around in bed to avoid waking the cats piled around you two, with Remy sleepily pressing a kiss to your temple. Losing days at a time, flickering in and out of your life like a specter, only to watch him grow more and more desolate in the wake of your disappearances.

Growing sicker for all the time-summoning your body forced you through. Reaching out for Remy’s hand to kiss it. Laughing at the way Remy pulled you up out of your chair to waltz in the kitchen in the middle of the night, despite him supporting most of your weight. Staring at the abandoned costume hanging in your closet, no longer your size due to the weight loss, knowing you could not wear it again in this lifetime. Accepting that, to be with Remy.

Accepting it all, just to be with Remy. Playing the odds with your own sort of suicide mission, just to keep a life with him. To earn your title with the X-Men and get dispatched on missions with them again. To be able to cuddle with the cats without scaring them with a violent waking. To go to sleep next to your husband with the knowledge you could see the same version of him in the morning.

Deal me in, LeBeau.

Eyes, mon cuore.

Warmth burns the back of your eyes. You open them slowly to stare at the blur of the fire crackling quietly in front of you. You can taste the fresh warmth of blood coating your tongue and sticking to the back of your front teeth. There’s something small and rectangular in your hand, but you don’t shift out of your curled up position to see what it is. You hadn’t intended on bringing something out of the timeline.

How strange, to dream and wake with nothing to show for it?

“C’est tout un sucre,” Gambit says softly. You flinch at the sound of his voice. You had nearly forgotten that he was there. “Not gon’ go ahead an’ ask what’s got you so scared.”

It takes effort to swallow back the swelling emotion in your throat. “I can take watch.”

“I s’pose you jus’ want some quiet, eh?” There’s the whispering shuffle of fabric, and then Gambit is settling down to lay next to you, leaving a near-imperceptible gap between you. In another life, you could reach out and touch him. Just not this one.

“Not really,” you sigh. He lets that lie for a heartbeat, letting you collect the raging tempest of thoughts scrambling your head. It would be awfully convenient if a wandering pack of mutants tried to attack you, or if Nova herself descended from the sky to kill you. Anything to spare you from the grave you were preparing to dig yourself into.

“Gambit,” you start, still staring resolutely ahead at the flickering flames, “I told you what happens to me.”

“Reset,” he muses. You can hear the gentle rustle of fabric, then the soft flicker of shuffling cards as he takes them from one hand to the other. He thinks best when he’s in control, and so he has his cards poised for action. You don’t look at him, but you’re not entirely sure if it’s for the sake of your control, or for his.

“What I said,” you agree. “It’s not a suicide mission if I go after Nova.”

“No,” he says.

“Even if she destroys the Void version of my body, I keep traveling,” you continue. “I can — ”

“No,” he repeats. The edge in his tone makes you pause, but it’s the hand that grips yours that makes you turn to stare at him. He isn’t wearing his gloves, and the warmth of his skin against yours makes the heat of the fire feel insignificant. It’s his eyes, though, that make your lungs seize up. All night-black pupils with hardly the rings of red. His eyes are his only tell that he’s terrified out of his mind.

You blink back at him, stunned. 

“Don’ be a fool,” he finally says. Slowly, reluctantly, he takes his hand from yours. The cold air in the wake of his touch burns just as much as uncontrolled wildfire. “We all gon’ get out dis place. Nobody dyin’.”

“I can’t die,” you shoot back. “Don’t you understand? I will always move on to another life. None of this matters to me! Not the Void, or Paris, or fucking New Orleans! If I go and blow up Nova, then I can move on and live my life in another timeline without dealing with any of this.”

“Movin’ on,” Gambit notes. He’s smiling, but there’s an edge to the curve of his mouth. “Dat’s jus’ called runnin’ away.”

“And Gambit never folds, is that it?” You hold up your other hand, the one with the playing card, and toss it to him. It flutters in the breeze before resting on his chest. He narrows his eyes at you, but his curiosity wins as it always does. He was always too easy to bait. A gambler never gives up the promise of a winning prize.

You don’t have to look to know what the card is. If you were dreaming of Remy, it only makes sense that you dreamed of his favored card. Gambit studies the Queen of Hearts with an inscrutable gaze. It’s not the version that Remy gave you; that one was likely consumed in the same blast that destroyed your body. This one is unwrinkled and vibrantly colored. Brand new.

“You don’ know, do you?” Gambit says. The flatness of his tone makes you pause, though you can’t bring yourself to look at the expression on his face. Your gaze locks onto the card he’s holding so delicately, as if he’s holding onto your heart rather than a piece of pressed painted cardboard.

“You kno’ me, hein?” He turns his head to look at you, and you have to force yourself to release the breath you’ve been holding in a slow, controlled sigh. Still, you feel stripped raw by his gaze. You wrap your arms around yourself to avoid the impulse to summon a staff and fend him off from his next words: “You recognize me.”

“Seen a lot of you lately,” you say. It’s meant to be dismissive and unaffected, but even you can hear the hitch in your breath when he shuffles an inch closer, eyes burning black into yours.

“You and Gambit meet before,” he half-laughs, not happily.

“Many times.”

“Then you know Gambit’s never forgotten a beautiful woman.”

Like that, he’s up and crouched above you, his hands clasped tightly to your upper arms. You’ve forgotten how quick he can be when he’s lost in the lure of a gamble. His warmth leeches through the thin fabric of your coat, time-stolen to match the beige wasteland around you and offer some hope of camouflage. It’s nothing like the armored fabric woven into his, and his touch reminds you of just how vulnerable you truly are right now.

You’ve met a few Gambits that have tried to actively kill you, before. One had plunged a sharpened edge of his staff right into your chest, aiming with precise calculation to slip it straight through the soft skin between your ribs. Another had taken you down as collateral in pursuit of more satisfying prey, stepping around your fallen body as he continued his game. And, of course there had been Remy, too.

This Gambit doesn’t tighten his grip, though you can feel the tension humming like hornets beneath his hands, kinetic energy pulsing in anticipation.

“Gambit,” you warn him. You don’t try to pull away. You don’t even reach for the veil of time that whirs at the edges of your vision, even if it would be almost easy to summon some method of distraction and escape this sudden intervention.

“He ain’t forget,” Remy repeats. He squeezes you, just once, eyes darting over your expression with intent tenacity. “Listen to me, eh? I promised you, chér. Even if you don’ remember it, I mean it. We gonna get out dis place together.”

Something metallic tastes spoiled in the back of your throat. You blink at him, struck suddenly by the realization that you have been hiding in plain sight. The Void must be more of a well-fitting title for this place than you initially assumed, as it’s given you nothing but barren territory to let your power meander. It gives you space to let the timelines mingle in a blurry mirage of recollection at the edges of your vision, like a film played in rapid reverse.

You thought you had been desensitized to meeting Gambits, and perhaps you were right. You couldn’t even recognize Remy LeBeau until he was right in front of you. How else would you explain finding your Remy here, and not recognizing him sooner?

One of his hands flickers, almost too quick to follow, and the cuff of his sleeve unravels to reveal a card. It’s not one of the suit of aces.

It’s your Queen of Hearts.

“Is dis your card?” His words are meant to be wry, but there’s a catch in his voice where his breath stutters, so soft you might miss it if you weren’t struck senseless at the sight. The edges of the card are singed black, no doubt remainders of the kinetic energy, but the crease down the middle is undoubtedly from your nervous fidgeting during missions with the X-Men. You kept it in your pocket as a good luck charm only to fiddle with it during downtime. Folding it over and over, running your thumb over the lines to memorize every feeling.

You can’t speak. It feels like being dragged into a violent undertow, the waves of memories flickering at the edges of your vision threatening to drown you. You suck in a shuddering breath, nearly a cry, and finally succumb to the urge to reach out and touch the curve of his jaw. He’s warm and familiar beneath your touch.

“‘M all in for you, mon coeur,” he says, and then he leans in and kisses you.

Warmth burns the back of your eyes, the telltale harbinger of the tears that start trickling down your cheeks in a slow caress. He’s kissing you with reckless abandon, and you open up under his touch, unwinding your arms from your sides to reach up and clutch at the lapels of his coat. One of his hands wraps around your waist, tugging you impossibly closer, the other moving up to cup your salt-streaked cheek. You can hardly feel the rough pad of his thumb wiping away the tears beyond the whir of power buzzing in the back of your throat.

You have to pull back, breathless, though Remy is holding you tight from retreating too far.

“I’m the kinda man that don’t leave,” he tells you. His voice is just as hoarse as you feel. “I don’ care if it hurts, mon coeur. Dis place can’t have you. We gonna get out.”

“I care, you idiot.” You press a kiss to the corner of his mouth, pulling back before he can turn his head to steal a proper one. He makes a soft noise of indignation, but you can’t let him think that any more sacrifice will fix the gaping wound festering between you two. “I don’t know how we can fix what’s broken between us, Remy. I’m terrified that you’re going to end up dead trying to fix it yourself.”

“Non,” he shakes his head, though he can’t hide the way his body tenses up beneath you. “Since when you talk that way, mon coeur? Gambit has a plan.”

“He knows the odds, is that it?” You tug him down to kiss him again, and he goes willingly to your silent command, his mouth warm against yours. You can taste the salt from your tears, only to pull back and see the shine in his eyes, too. How long had it been since you two were separated for good? You don’t remember. You have lived far too long outside of this time to remember when. You hope that Remy, however he ended up in the Void, doesn’t remember either.

You can’t bear the thought of him waiting to see if you would return, following in the wake of this Void version of your face. Counting the days, over and over, just to see a stranger wearing your body every time the sun rose.

“In this, he do,” Remy agreed. There’s a furrow in his brow, and you marvel at the way you reach up and smooth a thumb over the wrinkle, only for him to scrunch his nose at you in familiar distaste. “I taste blood, mon coeur. You hurt?”

Even as he asks, his hand runs down your side, checking for hidden injury. The memories at the edge of your vision flicker to a time where he had done the same thing after a particularly rough mission sent you crashing into a wall. You had cracked two ribs and spent some downtime on mandatory bedrest while he fussed over your every movement and tried to keep the cats from sleeping on your chest.

You don’t realize how long it’s been since you’ve seen him fuss over you, but the back of your eyes start to burn again. “I’m okay, Cajun. Just adjusting to the timeline.”

He lets you kiss him again, this time keeping your mouth closed to hide the taste of your blood, but he’s still frowning when you break apart. “Six days.”

You’ve never had to spend so long adjusting. You didn’t think Gambit would notice your lack of time-summoning, but then again, you hadn’t realized Remy was silently cataloging every action that confirmed your identity. In some instances, you would only spend a minute or two in a timeline. Six days counts as practically permanent without a reset.

God, how the hell had you not noticed him watching you? Of all the Gambits for you to return to, it had to be him. And out of all the versions of you that cross-trek the known universes, he had to get the one that is too goddamn tired of losing him. He had to get the version of you that was too tired to pretend that this life was worth wrestling with every moment of the day.

No wonder he broke his silent watch to admit the truth to you. Even if it broke his heart to watch you leave the timeline, he couldn’t sit there and listen to you act willing to destroy yourself again.

Which is why you can’t tell him you’re dying, anyway. Time doesn’t exist in the same capacity in the Void. The memories overlapping your vision are nothing more than ghostly shrouds of a past life. However your power works, it doesn’t have the same support in this place. Staying here will kill you.

“Listen,” you tell Remy. His body burns hot above you, a livewire of kinetic warmth. Alive and real. Your Remy, alive. “I promise we’ll get out of here, okay?”

I promise I will save you, you think as he kisses you, his hands cupping your face as if you are something precious to protect. No matter what.

[dusterbishop]

have you come here to rescue me (all of this can be broken)

summary. || three timelines, you have watched remy lebeau die. you didn't believe you would earn a fourth chance to save him until you find a variant with no memory of his past, lost in a void of existence.

pairing. || gambit x f!reader (past relationship with current enemies-to-lovers)

count. || 2.7k

notes. || posted on ao3 here. warning for character death and violence. thank you for all the kind comments and likes! i'm happy i could share this with such a talented fandom.

part one. || part two.

You and Gambit meet before, eh?

Many times

Mais, pleasure’s mine, chér. Gambit’s never forgotten a beautiful woman

You draw your next card at random, and find yourself flat on your back, the back of your head still slick with the blood that pools beneath you. The hit from behind splintered your skull, but this body merely festers with a fading migraine. It is the closest you could get to avoiding death without skipping from this reality entirely. The pain has to keep you anchored, because you can’t count on Gambit to know what to do to keep you here.

Gambit, for his part, stares down at you. He looks like your Remy, which seems like such a strange thought to have. Of course he looks like Remy LeBeau. That is who he is in every lifetime. And yet it makes perfect sense that you halt upon this revelation for the very same reason.

Every Gambit is Remy LeBeau, and yet this one looks like Remy. He has the same strong jawline, the same furrow of his brow, the same black-rimmed red irises. He towers over you, the line of his shoulders set back and perplexed, at least until he crouches down to be closer to your level. Every movement is fluid, graceful. No sign of pain or hesitation. No snarl of distrust or blank expression of disinterest.

Found ya’, chér.

You would laugh if the back of your skull wasn’t just recently smashed in, new body or not. The daze of death’s lingering touch keeps you still as you stare back up at him. He had promised you would meet again, hadn’t he? In another lifetime, at least, he had. You are not the same body that he had been in love with, and yet some part of you can still smell the smoke in the air and feel the buzzing of kinetic lightning across your skin.

He is not your Remy. Not even if he’s looking at you with that same curious intensity. Gamblers could never refuse the call of the cards, and you have a stacked deck.

“Watch it, Cajun,” you tell him. Your voice is scratchy, grating the back of your throat. That explains the weariness in your joints, then. This version of your body is sick in some way. “I know how to wave a stick.”

A knowing laugh escapes him. “Oui, saw ya’ wit’ it. Don’ threaten Gambit wit’ a good time.”

Right, the flirting. Of all the swamp-dwelling boys you could have ended up entangled with, you just had to choose the one with that damned silver tongue. This version of Gambit is no different than the thousands of others you have witnessed in terms of that, at least. Perhaps thousands was even a conservative estimate. How many times have you crossed lives only to find a stranger wearing the face of the man you love?

God, you’re tired of it all. You don’t think you can handle another Gambit right now.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” you sigh. “I’m not staying long.”

“S’il vous plait, you should.” He’s smiling, but you know that look in his eyes. Your gaze falls to the inner folds of his coat. You can barely make out the stitched lining where he keeps his cards, but you know that its there. He always had a habit of stitching the pockets in the same spot. Your Remy liked to command full control of the kitchen table to spread out his coat and ensure straight stitching. The cats liked it, too. You would come home to find them all clustered at the table, Remy idly scratching Oliver’s chin while he assessed his work, the other two boys stretched out languidly with them.

Gambit notices your attention, and his smile goes flat. “Where’ve you been my life, eh?”

“Could ask you the same thing,” you shoot back. The fatigue starts to settle deep in your bones. Maybe this body wasn’t sick when you borrowed it. Maybe this is just the effects of your time-skipping leeching over to another form. Your body feels like its burning a low-grade fever. “I don’t want to argue with you, Gambit.”

“Argue?” He looks almost offended at the mention of underlying tension. “Mon chér, you wound me. Dis is a civil conversation, non?”

“Don’t you get tired of talking?” You know he doesn’t. The two of you have spent so many hours sparring both in the danger room and verbally. He likes to make you take the backfoot in both fighting rings. At least, Remy did. This Gambit seems… off.

He almost seems familiar.

“Not when I’m talkin’ to you,” his smile edges with that coy charm. “Why don’ you tell Gambit about your travels?”

It feels like dunking your head beneath tumultuous ocean waves. Your gaze jolts to his eyes. His biggest tell had always been the way his pupils expand, consuming the ringed red of his irises. In some light, at some times, it almost looked as if he didn’t have irises at all. Just an all-consuming gaze of ink-black.

He looks that way, now, staring down at you. Black-eyed and smiling like a rogue, his elbows perched idly on the curve of his crouched knees, hands freely dangling between you. Unarmed, almost, if not for the weight of cards pressed against the cuff of his sleeves. That brand of stitching is new. Your Remy would have been absolutely delighted to see that sort of innovation as much as he would have groaned about not doing it himself.

“Ace up your sleeve,” you say instead. Your head is rattling with a desperate panic. How does he know that you can travel?

Gambit flicks his wrist, the air rushes, and a splayed set of cards stare back at you. Four of a kind. A handful of aces, in fact. Your Remy would be in absolute stitches over it.

“Some, oui,” he says. He looks just as pleased with himself. He always did like to be the smooth-talker. The air whirs with quiet trepidation, charging, turning metallic in the back of your mouth. One of his brows raises the same moment you half-raise your arm, reflecting the same suit of cards back to him. His fingers reluctantly slide closed on empty air.

“So do I,” you tell him. You hold steady when he goes to take them back from you and nearly yank your arm out of reach when his fingers close over your wrist instead. He’s wearing his gloves, but even the slight warmth of his skin pressed against yours makes your mouth go cotton-dry.

“Houdini,” he remarks.

“Not quite,” you whisper.

“Non,” he agrees. He studies your hand for a long moment. The cards are his, of course. You had shifted time just enough to reach across it and claim your prize. Nothing more than a parlor trick in the light of what you have done lately. What is a suit of cards in the face of endless, staggering realities? If you don’t like the way a restaurant cooks a dish, you can cross time until you find the same dish cooked to mind-numbing perfection. If you miss the city bus because it showed up three minutes early, you can change lifetimes to delay the driver by five minutes, the extra two minutes only for good measure.

If you lose one Remy LeBeau, why not venture out to find him again?

And again?

And again.

You know the answer, now. Maybe part of you always did, yes, but the answer is staring you in the face. You cannot ignore him any longer. You cannot skip timelines and pretend that there will never be a Remy like yours again. He was yours because he was not perfectly brought up as a child and ended up with some nine-to-five office job and a three-bedroom home with a white picket fence. That Remy does not have an interest in a strange paradox such as yourself. Neither does the Remy LeBeau that ends up being a schoolteacher, or a stay at home dad, or a volunteer at an animal shelter.

Your Remy was imperfect, and that was why he was the only version of himself that you could love.

This version of Remy LeBeau is still holding onto you. His grip is firm, but not bruising. He’s holding you fast to keep you with him, not to hurt you. You’re too tired to attempt to escape. Every muscle in your body feels leaden and overworked. That’s the other answer demanding your attention, but you let the revelation slip from its leash and ignore it.

“I know what you are, chér .” His grip doesn’t change, but there’s a dangerous riptide swelling in his tone. “What you do.”

“Wayfarer,” you say. It feels flimsy to say it like this, laying flat on your back, Gambit poised gracefully beside you. Remy had been rather nonplussed with the title when you first told him about it. Non, mon coeur, you are Wildcard. Not even Gambit knows your next move.  

“You travel, d’accord?” With the hand still holding you fast, he rubs the calloused pad of his thumb against the rapid flutter of your pulse. It’s nearly enough to make you flicker out of time itself, consequences be damned. His next words are a wistful purr. “You can leave.”

You aren’t sure why the surprise that lances through you hurts so much. Of course, he isn’t your Remy. You know this. He may smile and banter and touch you as kindly as Remy does — as he did, past tense, it’s all beyond your grasp now — but that does not make you something for him to cherish.

It does, however, make you something to use.

“I am always here,” you start, settling into this waltz slowly. This was the other part of your existence that used to confuse Remy. Some part of you hardly understood it, either. You don’t know how every part of a jet plane or automobile works either, though, so it doesn’t phase you much anymore. You had tried to explain it with the T.V. analogy, like your other versions were playing on different screens even if you aren’t tuned in, but that only served to confuse him more. He did enjoy your choice of explanation in some way, at least, by fully indulging in references from his favorite T.V. shows. The conversation had derailed into you hitting him with a pillow, and then you had both unraveled into a different sort of banter.

Not that Remy ever let you get the last word, though. Tuning the channel, he had said seriously, as you had writhed beneath his touch in a breathless rush. Smart-mouthed, smooth-talking swamp boy.

“Some part of me stays here. A variant,” you continue. Gambit waits, those slivered-red irises trained intently on your expressions. How strange to have him staring at you with such suspicion. You could never lie well to Remy LeBeau no matter the version you stumbled across. You could hold back, yes, but he would always know anyway. You have learned to stop hiding from him. It is inevitable that you will admit your life to him in some way, either by choice or by necessity.

“I am here,” you say. “Like I’m sitting in a coffee shop in Paris, reading the morning newspaper, playing the crossword. I can see the empty grid in my head. I know the clues.”

There’s a familiar furrow in Gambit’s brow. You’re suddenly glad he’s holding your hand before you end up surrendering to the urge to reach out and smooth it away. Not your Remy. A touch from you is not the sort he hungers for.

“Paris, eh?” He presses his thumb to your pulse. You wonder if he feels the leap in your heart beat at the touch. “Wha’s got you wandering da Void, then?”

“I didn’t choose to be here,” you admit. “I got… reset, I guess. My mind went to the next version of my body available.”

“Reset sounds awfully dire, I t’ink.” He gives you a pointed look. “Wha’s got you?”

For one long, awful moment, you almost tell him the terrible truth. You almost tell him that you went looking for a version of him that was familiar enough to soothe the gaping hole in your heart. That you found a Gambit that was witty and kind despite his shitty upbringing, one that liked to make you laugh and could keep up with the practice drills you still put yourself through. A Gambit that wasn’t afraid that you would one day vanish and be replaced by some version of yourself that he didn’t love.

You want to tell him that you found a Gambit that you had wanted to keep safe, and he was shot in the back trying to do the same for you. You tore yourself apart to take down the men that did it to him. You died with him and you still woke up within one breath and the next. You had to wake up and hear his voice, except this is not the Gambit that died because of you, this version does not know what he holds onto so tightly.

You want to tell him that three other versions of Remy LeBeau died just as terribly, and you just keep spinning the roulette wheel, and you just keep living.

“That version of me died,” you say. “Shot in the stomach.”

He’s looking at you as if he has never seen such a phenomenon. You suppose, technically, he hasn’t. He used to be one of the lucky ones that didn’t know you even existed. There goes that winner’s streak.

“Do’ya have t'die to… reset?”

You think about lying again. God, you wish you could. “Not always.”

He raises a brow at that, but you don’t offer to elaborate. Instead, you let the cards in your hand release from this reality with a soft whir of energy. Your head feels stuffed with cotton, or perhaps rocks. Maybe this is your mind finally burying itself alive in rebellion of your time-skipping antics.

“Tell ya what, chér.” His fingers loosen their grip on your wrist only to tangle with your own, intertwining your hands. Your breath catches. It’s the only split-second warning you have before he hauls you up to your feet, one hand entangled with yours, the other supporting the small of your back to keep you balanced. You have to shut your eyes against the vertigo that thunders in your head.

“Don’t die,” he continues. “Paris ain’t all it’s cracked up to be, hein? No reason to go dere.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” you grit out. You think you might throw up. Or pass out. Your free hand grips onto the lapel of Gambit’s coat hard enough for your fingers to grow stiff. His hand on your back is a solid, anchoring weight. It supports you more than you would like. Relying on him could be a dangerous game.

Still, your power is a raw, aching nerve burning through your veins. You couldn’t switch without tearing yourself apart, not as exhausted as you are. Considering that this Gambit hasn’t driven a knife into your back, either literal or figurative, it’s easier not to resist when he makes a soft hum and sweeps you into a bridal carry. You keep your eyes closed, and try to ignore the burn at the back of them. A part of you waits for his sound of pain, the impact of bullets thudding into his back. Another part wonders if he will be vaporized from existence by the TVA, just a second before your hands meet.

The third, quieter part of your mind just thinks: Remy.

Gambit, the fourth ace in your suit, doesn’t do any of those things. He adjusts your weight, testing to see if you will squirm out of his grasp, then he begins to walk. He’s strangely quiet. It’s almost a relief in the wake of your draining, familiar conversation. How many times will you have to reintroduce yourself to a Gambit? What could you possibly offer this fate-curious, battle-wary version of the man you love? It’s the sort of question that makes you reconsider your choice to stay.

Stay with a Gambit with ulterior motives, or move on to another life with no guarantee of who will meet you there? Well. When you put it like that, there’s no other option at all.

And, as if he can read your mind, Gambit begins to explain.

[dusterbishop]

two thousand years of chasing taking its toll (and it's coming closer)

summary. || three timelines, you have watched remy lebeau die. you didn't believe you would earn a fourth chance to save him until you find a variant with no memory of his past, lost in a void of existence.

pairing. || gambit x f!reader (past relationship with current enemies-to-lovers)

count. || 2.5k

notes. || posted on ao3 here. warning for character death and violence. i have crushed on gambit since the animated series in the nineties so the new movie brought back a lot of feelings.

part one. || part two.

An endless spread of worlds to wander into, and this is the one you choose: Gambit crouches next to you, his breath staggering out of him in pained wheezes, his hand clasping protectively over the nape of your neck.

It is getting harder to see past the blood dripping into your eyes and the sheen of unshed tears. Your abdomen throbs in intermittent waves of little agonies, needling deep in the pit of your stomach. The shots had gone wide, at first, until you had stepped right into them. Gambit had caught you as you stumbled, swearing too fast for your mind to unjumble past the desperate rush of French.

An endless expanse of possibilities, and you are living in this one, dying in his arms. It almost makes you laugh, except it hurts to breathe, and Gambit is supporting more of your weight than he was just a moment ago.

“Now don’ go doing that again,” he manages in English. One hand on your neck, his thumb pressed over your pulse, and the other pressed tight enough against your wound to make the shadows flicker around the edges of your vision. “Mais la, there ain’ gon’ be next time, chér.”

No. There isn’t. You know it as sure as you know how much he’s hiding his own hurt. He had been blown back twenty-five feet and hit the pavement hard enough that he had laid there, stunned, unarmed. His armor had been designed to take the weight of a blow, but he wasn’t dressed for a fight. Neither of you are. So they had aimed at him, and you had made sure it wasn’t him standing there when the guns went off.

Like one breath and the next. In, and you saw his impact, saw the weapons being raised towards him. Out, and you flickered across realities as smooth as Gambit shuffled his cards, every timeline fanning out before you in a sea of possibilities. Endless, countless possibilities.

This is your last Gambit, and you’re killing him just as sure as you’re killing yourself.

“I’m sorry,” you gasp out. Your voice trembles enough to make your lungs seize up. “Remy, I’m sorry.”

“Tant pis pout toi,” he shoots back. “Help Remy get you up, chér, ‘fore they shootin’ us.”

There is no version of you that isn’t broken that still keeps him alive, so you grit your teeth and let him haul you up, steadying yourself in this timeline. It has always been easier to tether yourself to one timeline when you have something to anchor yourself to. He sweeps you up in a bridal carry, and at this angle you can rest your heavy-list head against the warmth of his broad shoulder. He is a solid port of harbor beneath your tethering weight, a rock standing unyielding to the tide around it.

Your second Gambit had been like this, too. That variant had died with a blazing playing card in hand, his mouth twisted in rage, standing before you and the TVA headhunters with all of the bravado and confidence of a hopeless man. A final stand, he had called it. The two of you had gambled and gone all-in only for Gambit to be dead and you to be thrown into another identity.

You had told yourself that you would be better for this Gambit. No vigilante justice or petty crimes. You had gone on your first date to get po' boys and traded familiar barbs while you spun yourself into the web of a narrative that wouldn’t mark you as an oddity in this world. No strange time-skipping mutant here, only a human interested in a man with blackened red eyes and a smooth talking deck of cards.

Playing the odds, raising the bet. Your Remy would have loved that.

This Gambit, though, he dies holding you just like that, cradling you close enough that you feel the breath knocked from his lungs as the bullets find their mark against his unguarded back. You both tumble forward, the impact rattling your bones, your hands lashing out to catch desperately at the sleeve of Gambit’s coat.

Reality warps and trembles around you. You can sense the unfurling of this world’s integrity, like smoothing your hand down the ridge of Oliver or Lucifer’s back and feeling them arch expectantly beneath your touch. Of all your cats, Figaro had always preferred Remy, much to his triumph. This Gambit didn’t have cats; he admitted to being allergic during your third date, and you had to quash the rush of disappointment that rose in you. You had thought to find good foster homes for the boys, at least, in exchange for the sacrifice of loving Gambit. There is some sort of intrinsic symbolism in the fact that they exist just as you two do in every timeline you share.

Not that it matters, now.

“No,” you groan, dragging yourself towards Gambit’s body. Pain lances through your abdomen in arcs of lightning. It’s nearly as debilitating as the sight of him. He’s hunched over on his side, one hand still outstretched limply towards you, the other awkwardly twisted beneath his body. Your voice wretches out of you in a pained wobble. “No, no, no.”

You take his hand and close your eyes at the fading warmth. This is the third time you’ve watched him die. You don’t know what to do anymore. The pain in your abdomen is a vicious throbbing ache in beat with your heart, a clashing crescendo descending upon your head just as disorienting as the footsteps picking their way towards you. They will shoot you in the back and call it a well-fought battle. They will destroy your body with Gambit’s and never speak your names to anyone in this world’s timeline again. As if you are nothing.

As if this version of Gambit, with his purring accent and smooth-striking dealer hands, is nothing more than an obstacle in the way of the true prize of killing you where you lay bleeding.

“I’m so sorry,” you whisper to Gambit. You have to let go of his hand so you don’t take his body with you, and then you let reality shift and expand around you, demanding the timeline to come to heel, shuffling the next five minutes into a ribbon-spread of flashing images.

One minute: you come to your feet. This is almost the hardest part. You have to find a version of yourself that is stable enough to handle the staggering weight of the transition. Your body has been operating in survival mode for far too long, especially in this timeline where you met the new Gambit in the throes of angry grief. You hardly recovered before you threw yourself into society with a desperate hope to attract him back into your orbit. This version of your body feels calm and refreshed, which must mean it’s from right after your second date with Gambit, when he escorted you home and wished you goodnight and you fell asleep with a smile on your face.

Two minutes: you see Gambit. His eyes are half-open and glazed with death, staring far into a horizon you can never reach. He would still be alive if you had never crossed timelines to search him out. This world’s version of you had been killed while you were still young and unpracticed in hiding your power. It had been easy to slip into the vacant space and fill it up with a new identity. He had never known your real name, just the mask you wore to allure him closer to you. You see him, laying there, and all you can remember is his shocked laugh when he noticed the way you ate your sandwiches with a fork and knife. Chér, ought’a you honte, non?

Three minutes: you kill them all.

Four minutes: every single one of them. This is the easiest part.

Five minutes: you have to exchange your borrowed body with your current one, and that is the hardest part. You can feel the seams of your borrowed self strain under the weight of your rapid time-skipping, further stretched thin by the pain of your current self. A wounded body decays far faster when you aren’t occupying it. It’s a reluctant exchange, and you stumble beneath the sudden weight of your current self as it wraps around your consciousness. The impact to the ground is faster than your changing, too fast to feel the echo wave of pain. You retch blood and bile, turning your face to avoid choking on it.

You will be nothing more than another corpse beside Gambit’s in a minute. You can feel the timeline of death fogging your mind, muffling your reflexes. You have exacerbated your own death by orchestrating theirs. It’s not a surprise: when Gambit fell, his breath knocked right out from him, you had felt that same jarring finality.

Only this time, only for you, when you close your eyes in death, you open them in another world entirely.

It's a battlefield.

Not surprising. Your hand automatically goes to the small of your back, fingers curling around the cool polished wood of your bo staff. With one fluid flourish, you pull it out from its sheath and extend the length, timelines humming in your hand with the same buzzing tempo of Gambit's kinetic energy. Unlike his power, your staff doesn't glow blazing violet. In one moment and the next, it simply snaps into its full length, the air hissing with displaced energy.

Once, with your Remy, he had settled himself in an armchair in your shared apartment, half-drunk with one of the cats in his lap, and he had demanded to watch you cross timelines. It took small objects, at first. A coffee cup across the room, a pair of your underwear from the bedroom, the cat purring underneath his very touch. You had been a little less drunk from your night out together, but it had been exhilarating to perform for him in a way that affected you far beyond the influences of alcohol. The weight of his black-red eyes lingering over the curve of your figure could take you apart as sure as any timeline.

He had been mystified yet delighted at your display of prowess. Y’a natural Houdini, eh, chér?

 That wasn’t quite true, though. You didn’t disappear, you simply… rearranged yourself to exist in a state of your choosing, from a time of your choosing. You had explained it to Remy like this: like choosing the channels on T.V. until you found a show you liked. Except instead of old reruns of some sitcom, you were settling on a state of existence.

Your weapon of choice - the bo staff, much like the one Remy trained you with - comes from another version of yourself. It weighs a perfect balance in your palm because it was made for you, even if you were not the one to personally commission its design. The staff whistles sharply as it cuts through the air, singing its anticipation as you swing into action, adrenaline from the fight with the hunters still raging in your veins. It’s a relief to be distracted from the last image of Gambit, dead.

Instead, you revel in the finesse of an unfair fight.

There seems to be four men surrounding you, their faces a blur of distant familiarity. Some part of you had met them, before, in another time. You could have tried to find the names to their faces if they weren’t fully committed to trying to kill you. Battle comes to you easier, and perhaps you are indulging in the violence when you could have stepped away and gone to another time.

But, perhaps, you are so fucking tired of being anything other than a violent, selfish thing.

It’s all smooth motion, to fight like this. Alone. No need to worry about a Remy LeBeau by your side in case the reckless fool got himself killed trying to protect you. You think to your Remy: I told you nothing was going to happen to me, LeBeau. I exist in so many timelines that it doesn’t matter what happens to me.

It doesn’t matter what happens to you. Not even when one of them strikes you across the face with the sharp bend of their elbow, cutting your cheek against your molars and filling your mouth with blood. You merely shuffle the deck, pull another card, draw a version of yourself with no blood and just as much battle-hardened pain tolerance. So many versions of you can handle the aftershocks of pain that your stride hardly stutters as you swing your staff and sweep his feet out from under him. Another swing, a sickening crack of a wood impact to an unprotected skull, and you keep moving to the next target.

Another hit to your ribs, hard enough to knock the breath from you. Shuffle, pull, draw. Your new borrowed body takes the hit without notice and crushes the faceless attacker’s windpipe, cutting off his shriek of pain in a gurgling wheeze. The next one tries to make a move while your back is turned, and you move to meet him, staff swinging, mouth twisted in a grimace. You can feel the timeline bending to stretch thin around you, taut with the rapid succession of your draw. Your blood thunders in a raging crescendo in your ears. There is a limit to how much you can take before you splinter apart.

You just don’t know if you care to heed that limit, anymore.

Another swing. Shuffle, draw, pull. This version of you switches from the long reach of your bo staff for the more intimate versatility of twin blunt-ended sticks. It works well for close combat. So well that your opponent has to keep to the backstep to avoid your blows, shuffling out of range.

So well, that you forget that there were four.

The pain that cracks across the back of your skull sends you to the ground in an instant. Your hands spasm and release the sticks, but not fast enough to soften the blow of your sudden fall. The timeline whines a high-pitched whir around you, unsteady in the relentless time-skipping.

Too bad, you think distantly. This is a quick life for this timeline of yours. A violent, lonely one. It is grim, but there is a quiet relief in the end beckoning you closer. The quick ones are the easiest. It only really kills you when you have to linger in the shadow of your self’s presence. A living ghost. That’s all you really are. You just haunt the narrative of your own lifetimes.

You, and Gambit.

Blazing purple flashes across your vision, and the timeline whirs again, except it isn’t, because you haven’t used your dealer’s hand. It isn’t your power charging the air with magnetic energy. It is all Gambit’s. Of course it fucking is.

How ironic for you to find him now, in this timeline where he has never known your name, when you are already dead? You close your eyes to silently curse out whatever pathetic higher being found fit to orchestrate your life into this circus sideshow.

“Cherchez la femme,” he says. His accent is lilting in its coyness. “Found ya’, chér.”