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"Did you need to hit them that hard?"

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There was something so natural and easy between them. Little comments like of course I know the story were almost enough to make Layla forget the oddities of their relationship — for a few seconds, at least. Having someone who knew a lot about that which she held dear made her feel seen. Steven saw the history that had helped shape her culture. He saw her.

"It is pretty neat, huh?" She echoed back with a chuckle. There was something disarming about Steven. His joy, his enthusiasm. While Layla loved her husband — disposition included — she appreciated the way Steven saw the world as well. The more time they spent together, the less she wanted to compare the two. To outside eyes, they were just two patrons of the museum enjoying each other. The gods on their backs made them more than that, of course, but she did enjoy being around him.

"William the Hippo?" Dark eyes momentarily narrowed in thought before Layla snapped once. "Yes. The statuette molded in faience. I haven't seen him since hippos became a more prominent part of my life, though." More like one hippo who was actually an immortal deity. "That should be in the Middle Kingdom section. We could go there next?"

Every moment spent in normalcy felt like a gift. Layla loved being the Scarlet Scarab and helping people. It made being an avatar worth it despite her qualms with the system. That said, she also appreciated these stolen moments of normal life.

"I'm happy to be here with you, Steven. I don't know if I've said that, but I wanted to."

“Oh, of course I know the story. Lots of people think that she tried to portray herself as a man in all of her portraits to try and disguise the fact that she was a woman, but historians actually believe it was because she wanted to make it clear that she demanded the same respect as any ol’ male pharaoh. I think that’s pretty neat.” It didn’t take much to get Steven rambling on the topic, and as soon as he realized it he found himself chuckling quietly under his breath before nervously wringing his hands together. 

Things were certainly an adjustment, and that fact only rang more true the minute they found themselves in a reality that didn’t belong to them. Steven had already been trying to adjust to being away from London, living with Marc, with Layla, and now it felt like his feet had been completely knocked out from underneath him. How were they possibly supposed to navigate something like this? 

It felt impossible. And overwhelming, if he was being honest, but there was something about Layla being around that made him feel like anything was possible. 

Thankfully, Layla took the reins a bit and Steven just smiled at her like an idiot for a long few seconds, not processing that she’d asked for him to show her his favorite artifact until he’d waited an awkward amount of time without responding. 

“Oh, show you mine? Well—“ Truthfully, it was hard for him to pick a favorite. There were just so many beautiful pieces of work in the Met, and he was still wrapping his brain around all of them. But as he started to think about it, something did catch his eye earlier. 

“Have you seen William the Hippo?” 

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It was a genuine laugh that bubbled out of her. Despite all of their trials and tribulations, it was important to remember that Layla had genuinely fallen in love with Marc. Life hadn't exactly been kind to them. Things had been terse and tense, but there had been joy as well. There had been a love deep enough to make standing by his side worth it. That love was still there, even though new frustrations often popped up. Each one they faced together. The man had tried to divorce her after ghosting her. Layla forgave him now that she knew what had been going on, but she was still grateful for moments in life these ones.

"Maybe we do. Is that so bad?" She asked, her tone light.

It was more that they sat and read together, or watched history documentaries. It had seemed like a good idea to familiarize herself with the history of the city that she was quite literally trapped in. Without thinking, her hand squeezed his back.

Taking a sip from her straw, Layla glanced to her husband. "You're stalling, Marc. Five seconds before you forefit, and that counts as being wrong."

Marc was used to having his life turned upside down. Most of the time it happened to be while he was in Egypt, so he had to appreciate the change of scenery. Things could have been exponentially worse than living with a ‘variant’ of himself in some kind of makeshift church. He at least had Layla and Jean-Paul. 

The two of them had been through so much together— missions, deaths, saving the world, they could deal with this. And all things considered, it wasn’t like there was currently any kind of impending threat headed their way. They were just misplaced.

If there was anyone Marc would want to be stranded in another reality with, it was Layla. He hated himself for leaving her the way he did after she died— but he was working to be better now. He had to be better. Not just for his sake, but for Layla’s. She deserved so much more than he’d been giving her back before he left, and it was a miracle that she hadn’t run for the hills by this point. 

Working on things meant taking the time to just… exist, together. So there they were, walking hand in hand through a crowded Central Park, and he was surprisingly at peace. 

He smirked softly at her question, tilting his head as he squeezed her hand and let it swing gently by their sides. He pondered his answer for a long few seconds, staring off into the grass for awhile before finally turning back to look down at her. “Do you and Steven just sit around learning trivia with each other or something? Is that what this is?” 

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"I'm more familiar with beings that use humans for annihilation and amusement than I would like to be." Isn't that what the gods like Khonshu — and to some extent, Tawaret — did? "But the ones I know did not do this. I would love to know who did."

"frankly, i think every one is a bit too casual about this. i've been alive for half a millennia and spent lifetimes studying the vast expanse of the mystic arts. Even I can't think of too many beings capable of this sort of multiversal feat, at least not any that bring comfort." "Plucking variants from one universe to the next and gathering them to another is one thing. It is another entirely to perform so against our will, in such a way that it cannot be undone. And, for what? Annihilation? Amusement?"

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"I'll take the creepily abandoned compound over rooming with your variant at the Midnight Mission." They had tried that, but it hadn't gone well. The Avengers Compound wasn't ideal. Layla wouldn't claim it was. It was, however, preferable to their previous accommodations in this reality. "At least we have our own room."

"Oh, yeah. It's real nice that we get to stay in this creepily abandoned complex until everything's sorted out. It's like a frickin' vacation if you ask me."

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"Very few things actually live up to expectations. I don't think I could really like any place that I'm caged in."

"Always wanted to visit New York, just thought when I did I'd be able to leave. Expectations were too high I guess?"

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"It's actually not for me." Layla danced over the comment about a dead variant. She had recently learned the term and the fact that she herself had a variant. It wasn't something Layla liked to think about. "Would you be willing to do one for my husband without him present?" With so much against them, Layla would take any advantage she could. It just didn't seem likely that Marc would be interested in the reading.

"witches have been surviving for centuries. it's what we do. so if one more person decides they want to remind me that my variant is dead, they'll be the next to join her. now... did you want a damn tarot reading or not? I take cash-app and venmo."

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"I've been racking my mind looking for an excuse as to why I came, but I don't have much. I don't know. I wish it wasn't for answers, but I think it is."

"If you've come to ask for my help, I know just as much as you do." Which was unfortunately, nothing. It was a hard pill for Stephen to swallow, but it was the truth.

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"I'm sure it will be equally as challenging as this. Nothing ever is simple, is it?"

"First I'm in a new time period and then I'm in a new reality. I'm nervous to find out what's coming next."

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@moonsquires

"No one is going to take it from you." Layla watched in mild amusement as the newest member of the Moon Knight family cult scarfed down his ice cream. "I can get you another, if you'd like."

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MARC SPECTOR & LAYLA EL-FAOULY ↳ 1.03 THE FRIENDLY TYPE

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@bandagedknight

There was something about summer in New York City. A warm reprieve was more than welcomed after months of a seemingly endless gray. Egypt cooled in the winters, but it was nothing what America's east coast subjected its residents to. Long called a citizen of the world, Layla had only visited New York once as a child. The trip had actually been to an archaeological conference in Washington D.C. Somehow, Layla had convinced Abdallah to make the train ride up the coast to New York so they could spend a day or two in the city. After visits to the Natural History Museum and Met, she had all but tugged him into the blinding lights of Times Square. It may as well have been a different world from the one they normally spent their days in, and both had been relieved to go home.

Now, home looked different. Home was in the shape of a many minded man whose arms were the start of her world. There was more to her life, of course, but the London flat or Cairo apartment were just spaces she had a key to. Layla had been a child often on the move. Her sanctuary, once found in her father, was now in Marc. It had been all the more devastating each time she lost him because of this. It wasn't just an empty half of the bed that taunted in the night. It was a lack of security that ate at her.

The Midnight Mission of Earth-Prime was only temporary housing. It was occupied by another Marc who was not her Marc and a cast of characters that was foreign outside of Jean-Paul. Even though it was nice to have a place to stay, Layla tried to be outside as much as possible. Her schedule often conflicted with Marc's. The two avatar's remained perpetually busy, which made the time they did together all the more valuable.

Sunlight warmed freckled cheeks as Layla scanned the crowded paved walkway. Central Park was full of tourists and locals who lounged on blankets and played fetch with their panting dogs. They were all inconsequential in that moment. All Layla cared about was the one hand that was wrapped around Marc's, connecting the two spouses through intertwined fingers. In her other hand she balanced an iced coffee; before her contract with Tawaret, the caffeine would have left her buzzing. Now, it was just a pleasant sweetness. She felt revitalized in ways she couldn't have imagined herself being, even with the mess they found themselves in.

"True or false: Central Park was the result of a competition?" She asked, one brow raising as she glanced at Marc. "You get it wrong, you cook tonight."

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@bandagedknight

Plans were for the privileged. To be able to say something would occur and then have it actually do so without life — or, for the unfortunate, deathless deities — intervening required a certain kind of assurance not found in the capabilities of the common man. That was not to say, however, that one could not achieve that which they put their mind to. Goals were something entirely different than plans. Goals accounted for far more than the scope of most plans. Goals were constantly shifting and evolving. It felt easier to realign a goal than account for a ruined plan.

This had been a hard lesson for Layla to learn. As a child, she had meticulously planned her future from the dig sites she shadowed her father at. Abdallah had always encouraged his daughter to reach for the stars, as if she could touch Nut herself. She would go to university, follow in her father's footsteps. One day she would have children of her own to carry on the El-Faouly name. Her life did not need to be grand in order to be satisfying.

Shai had other plans for her.

A massacre. That's how she first heard of it: a massacre. A group of archeologists slaughtered in cold blood. As the daughter of a researcher, the news had sent her into a panic. She had called every contact in her phone and driven out to to the dunes herself only to be met with government agents and caution tapes. Blood as red as the scarf she had made her father mingled with the sand, wails lost to the wind that howled through the night. It seemed impossible that Ra's would rise through the sky in the morning, but he had. The world had kept turning even though every idea that Layla had carefully constructed for herself had been shattered.

From there, her plans changed. The black market became a second home that she embraced as a means to an end. Find stolen artifacts. Return stolen artifacts. Dole out justice where she could, all while creating a tourniquet around her heart because she couldn't find justice where she desired it the most. It would have been all too easy to substitute the justice she craved for vengeance. The hard truth was that no matter how satisfying the latter would be, it was not what her father would have wanted. And so, Layla persevered.

Marc Spector was the final straw. Meeting him, marrying him, loving him. Being with Marc required a kind of reckless abandon that laid all of Layla's plans to rest. There would be no children to fill their halls or wear the scarfs made by a mother's loving hands. There was only uncertainty and danger. Layla rushed into the relationship headfirst with a bullheaded determination to make it work. Being the wife to Khonshu's fist often meant coming in second to Marc and his demons. She was self-sufficient and independent because she had been raised to be. That didn't bother her. Surprisingly, letting go of her plans didn't either. They had to take each punch as they came no matter how much it hurt.

And gods, did it hurt at times.

Steven Grant certainly wouldn't have fit into the plans that Layla could have conjured up. Her husband having some kind of crisis and leaving her was easier to fathom than the truth that the breakdown was caused by a dissociative identity disorder she hadn't known about. Even after all the nights they had spent sharing a bed and each second his hands had spent roaming her body, there was still so much about the man she had made vows to that Layla had yet to uncover. Just like her father had devoted his life to exploration and the quest for knowledge, Layla would do the same. Surely but slowly she would unspool Marc's secrets and learn to live with them.

Steven was, admittedly, complicated. She looked in his face and saw Marc's dark eyes, his strong jaw sometimes lined with stubble. But those eyes were different, softer. The jaw wasn't clenched in a perpetual frown. Marc was not Steven, even if her brain kept contributing Steven to Marc. He had to be approached differently. The dynamic between the three of them was new and still very much learning to be maneuvered. It had been difficult before they had been sucked through the multiverse. Marc, Layla, Steven, and Frenchie. It was quite the group if there ever had been one. All lost, all trying to figure it out. It felt like that was the best they could do with the group constantly being pulled out from underneath them.

It was with great self-control that hands remained by Layla's side. After a lifetime of being surrounded by her own culture and embracing it freely, there was a strange detachment to see parts of it locked up in a museum across the world from where it should have been. The trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Arts hadn't officially been dubbed a date, but it still carried the weight of nervous butterflies that had taken flight in Layla's stomach. Instead of running her fingers across the smooth stone that composed Hatshepsut's sphinx, Layla occupied herself but folding the museum map that she didn't really need.

"I always loved her when I was a child. Hatshepsut, that is." Layla gestured to the sphinx. "I know you know the story, about how Thutmose III smashed her statues and tried to have her removed from history. A woman pharaoh? She wasn't Egypt's first female ruler — that was Sobekneferu — but she's not remembered like Nefertiti or Cleopatra. Even though history tried to turn its back on her, we're still standing here remembering her. That's something beautiful about that, isn't it?"

Marc and Layla discussed history, of course. There had been countless nights of takeout and wine as Layla reported on artifacts she was searching for. Marc had indulged her, but talking history with Steven felt different. Conversing with him sparked a part of her that her father had helped kindle when she was a child. The past was the past, yes, but it informed the present. It was hard to put into words, but Layla felt Steven understood. It sometimes felt like he could see her in ways Marc couldn't — and Layla meant no disrespect to her husband with that realization.

She turned to look at Steven. "Now that I've talked your ear off, show me your favorite?"

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“You smell like him.”

MOON KNIGHT Season 1 Episode 4 - ‘The Tomb’

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The new Scarlet Scarab is coming to the comics!

Art by Davi Go.