Chapter Text
✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧
✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧
"'Could that' I marvelled 'be you?'
and a chickadee
to all the world, but to me some
(by name
(myself) one long ago
who had died,
replied"
56, 73 Poems
E.E Cummings, 1964.
.·:·.✧ ❊ ✧.·:·.
Three months after Moon Knight’s critically acclaimed death, tell Stephen Strange why, then, is the man alive? Donning a different suit, all black, instead of white?
Two months after the vampiric invasion caused by Varnae, one month after New York was finally rebuilt after Doom’s treachery, and two weeks after Strange donned the mantle of Sorcerer Supreme once again: Why is the man in his house?
Sitting there, in his chair, legs crossed, a stark white suit, sipping too-bitter smelling tea, and smiling towards his wife?
Arragant mother fuck—
If Strange had no morals, he would kill this man, and only this man, in cold blood. Then, perhaps he could forgo the resentment boiling in his stomach and rising into his chest—when the man was six feet under again, he could take a breath; he could close his eyes and not notice how Moon Knight’s posture is lax in comparison to his typical tense stature. He could open his door, walk through his house, and not be able to smell the faint odor of sewer, mothballs, and blood that he carries—because the man would be dead.
There would be blood on the sorcerer's hands, but he and his wife would live their lives in peace and prosperity. The killer of Moon Knight would certainly be a title to behold.
Strange continues to dwell in the doorway in a stand-still, teeth clenched. His typical work clothes are already adorned: Deep blue robes with bright blue accents, yellow gloves, and his rightfully earned Cloak of Levitation.
The clock to the left of him shows the time as 7:30 AM; he was about to offer coffee to Clea, then take Bats out for a walk with her, but as he notes, someone else already beat him to it.
That someone else was talking to his wife. In his kitchen. In his place of peace.
The room falls into silence as Strange realizes all too quickly that the three are staring at him with confused, yet worried gazes. He feels as though his head is going to explode.
Instead, he clears his throat and waltzes into the room, palms open in peace. The room stirs when Bats scrambles off of Moon Knight’s lap and onto the ground, leash dragging behind him.
If the kitchen wasn’t gorgeous, with hardwood flooring, beams supporting the ceiling, intricate swirls that look akin to old, ancient spells carved into the walls, and with marble countertops to boot, he would have banished the three of them to another dimension and left them all for dead.
Maybe he wouldn’t have done that to Clea. Or to Bats. Just Moon Knight, who clears his throat, gets up with one swift motion, makes a quick goodbye to Clea, and strides out of the room. His white shoes, caked in mud, clack against the ground as if he has tap shoes on. Clea heads off with him, attempting to give the man an actual goodbye.
He doesn’t hear the words exchanged, for he feels as if his world is underwater. He feels like he is drowning.
Maybe that was the breaking point for Strange. He could handle Moon Knight coming in here after his working hours, nice clothes, all the while not getting anything dirty. However, to come in caked in mud was revolting to him. Maybe other factors fed into his building rise of tension, ready to snap: Waking up on the wrong side of the bed, the oddly good relationship between someone he hates and his wife, and the fatherly relationship he’s garnered with Bats.
With Bats. His dog that he saved, mind you, from Loki Goddamn Laufeyson.
“You look like you’re going to explode, doc.” Bats scratches at his leg, rousing Strange from his stupor. "Is your heart good?"
“Do not fret about me,” he shakes his head and forces a smile. To Bats, it looks eerie and inhuman. “Have you already been walked this morning?”
“Yeah, but I wouldn’t mind goin’ again.” Bats woofs, planting himself down in front of the sorcerer's feet.
“No, no.” He raises his hand, spinning around on his heel. “I have something to do first.”
╚══ ☾•°◉°•☽ ══╝
Marc hadn’t had one of these in a long time: A good morning.
It’s been two months since Khonshu had been broken out of prison—or when he was pieced together, bit by bit, by the unlawful G-d. He still remembers when his flesh and sinew were forced to wrap around his bones again—when his neurons had to reconnect—how everything felt. How it still feels: Wrong. Violating.
It’s been one month since New York came back, fully rebuilt, after the invasion and Doctor Doom's Sorcerer Supreme reign. Homes that were torn down are now back up. The streets are missing the fear of stragglers from the vampiric invasion; nobody is scared of Doom, for he has fled back to rule Latvia, and the Fantastic Four are back in action with Reed Richards alive.
It’s been two weeks since Stephen Strange gained his rightful mantle as Sorcerer Supreme of Earth once again. Marc believes within his entire heart that nobody can do as well as he can in the role. Others disagree, yet their counter arguments are held up by frail strings.
He’s certainly not biased… If you don’t look at how, upon Clea’s request, Strange had Khonshu placed back into Asgardian prison by being termed a Threat to the Balance of the Vishanti.
(He's not one to smile, but the way Khonshu trembled at the demands of the sorcerer still brings one to his lips. A faint one, but one, nevertheless.)
After Doom, and the re-incarceration of Khonshu, Clea had invited him to tea during the mornings. Slowly it became a routine: Marc would work, clean himself up enough to be presentable, say his goodnights to his Missionaries, and have tea until he’s sent to bed by Clea.
Marc loves the Sanctum as much as he loves Clea—platonically, of course. He admires and respects the nature of both of them; the ever moving parts. Every week, something changes: chairs are replaced, plants appear and disappear from the windows, Clea wears new dresses and robes, more circles are carved into the wooden walls, and Bats joins them from time to time.
This morning was nothing different, either than the pep in Marc’s step and the sharp crisp in the air. The breeze smells of bitter urine and cigarettes, but he can feel an underlying message being carried through the wind: Summer is here, flowers have bloomed, and everything is alive.
Maybe that's why he asked if Bats wanted to go on a walk. Maybe that's why he made the tea this time, adding cream for Clea and nothing for him. Maybe that’s why the three of them decided to run back after the weather shifted, suddenly pouring down on them. Maybe if he knew that he had forgotten to slip off his shoes, or knew that the creaking above them was Strange shuffling around his room, he would have left when he returned to the Sanctum. Instead, he allowed the warmth of Clea’s smile and eagerness of Bats’ demeanor to wrap him into a sense of comfortability.
As Strange rounds the corner and pauses in the doorway of the kitchen, staring, Marc suddenly remembers that he’s been wrapped into his own delusions. The bitterness of his tea finally sinks into his stomach, bubbling acid down his esophagus, and the room goes cold. Bats, who was once stretched over him, retracts and slips to the ground.
Seeing the que of Strange waking up, red in the face, Marc drags himself out of the lazy comfort of the Sanctum, and out into the bustling streets of New York. Clea follows him out, barely being able to attempt an apology before Marc disappears into the crowded street, chest tight and heart racing.
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“Holy shit! It’s mother fuckin’ Doctor—”
Moon Knight should have known this was going to happen. Once again, they let themself get too comfortable. Dr. Strange floats to the ground in front of him, halting a drug dealer in their tracks. The criminal, who yelled such expletives, is swiftly wound in bright orange bands and placed to the side, against the alley wall. Moon Knight takes a step back, raising their worn truncheons.
The criminal gets the que to stay quiet—Thank G-d.
Strange opens his hands, palms up to the vigilante, as a similar cadence to the morning. Moon Knight speeds through a protection prayer—Hashkiveinu—“Shield and shelter us beneath the shadow of Your wings. Defend us against enemies, illness, war, famine and sorrow”— in preparation for what the sorcerer’s presence demands.
“You are not welcome in the Sanctum Sanctorum any longer, Moon Knight.”
They lower their weapons and take a pause. Even the criminal seems confused, eyebrows raised, and eyes darting back and forth. Strange crosses his arms and frowns. He taps his foot and cocks an eyebrow at the suddenly stumped Moon Knight.
“Excuse me?” Moon Knight blurts out. They're more confused than angry. Marc assured them all that Clea would have told them such things. Clea was like that: Reliable. She trusted them and they trusted her.
Did they somehow overstep boundaries?
“Excuse me? Seriously, you thought after this morning's stunt, you wouldn’t be kicked out?” Strange huffs, shaking his head. “I want the Sanctum to be me, my wife, my dog, and whoever Wong brings in. That is all I want. I don’t want it to be me, my wife, my dog, Wong, and a random rat that lives in the walls.”
…From the corner of their eye, Moon Knight swears the dealer leans in, as if it’s world-renowned gossip and they’re the gossip queen. It takes all of their might not to knock the dealer out then and there.
“Did you seriously compare us to a rat because someone has tea with Clea from time to time?” Moon Knight grits their teeth. If anyone in the system was at full attention, and well, if Marc allowed anyone else to get closer to the front, Moon Knight swears the entire system would be dying of laughter.
Instead, the laughter that would be there is replaced with simmering anger. “We're not doing anything with your wife, Strange. Hell, the entire Mission, including you would mark us dead.”
A pause. All Moon Knight hears is their heart beat and the fluttering of both of their capes. They feel as if they're holding on for dear life at the edge of a cliff—the edge of having a safe place either than the Mission—and their grip is about to slip from such rarity.
Strange huffs. “I want time with my wife again. I feel as though every morning it’s not Stephen and Clea, it’s you and Clea. I want my house to be my house.”
“No one is taking that away from you—”
“Spector, I do not care what you have to say.” He jabs his finger towards Moon Knight, digging it into their armor. They refuse to tense over his misidentification. They remind themself: They're only seen as a title, and they must be comfortable with such. “I have had enough of you. You can have tea anywhere else but in my home. Until you actually have a reason for me to allow you into my house, then you are not allowed anywhere near it, understood?”
The air is tense and the alley is silent. It’s as if the world has stopped to listen. Moon Knight raises their hands and steps away, nodding. Their stomach aches, and they don't know whether it's from Marc's way too bitter tea corroding their stomach, or the other alternative they don't want to think about: Vulnerability. A part of them itches to grab at their stomach and curl into a ball, but that would be childish.
They want run away so bad.
“I understand, Doctor.” Moon Knight pulls their cowl over their armor, bowing their head.
They have fallen off of the cliff. They are going to die.
“Good,” Strange growls, spinning around and promptly disappearing through a portal—it’s all too fast—it’s all too sudden. Once Strange leaves, the weight in the air slowly dissipates; all that is left is a pit in Moon Knight’s stomach, and the frog in their throat.
They got too comfortable—or did Marc? What is wrong with them?
“Goddamn!! M.K, you gonna let that son ofa’ bitch let you dog-walk ya’ like that?” The criminal spits out, eyes wide. “Seriously, didn’t know the doc was on some high-horse type a’ shit. Is he always like this?”
The vigilante only sighs and wobbles next to the person, falling to the ground beside them. Now next to the criminal, they bring their legs up, resting their chin on their kneecaps.
They don't cradle their legs. Only a boy would. They're not a kid. They don't feel such trivial things such as heartbreak.
And yet, the world is suddenly too loud, too bright, and too much all at the same time. They feel like they're crashing, and they don't know where they're going to land. The water is coming closer—it smells salty; it smells bitter.
They still have to do their job in the end. "What drug were you dealing with?”
“I think it’s an off brand of cocaine. They say it’s dust straight from the moon, man—” A eureka moment for the criminal happens, as seen from their face lighting up. “Hey! You’re a moon guy—you want our main supplier? I’ll exchange it if you give me dirt on that old hag.” They smirk, kicking their feet.
They cannot believe that they—well, Strange—caught a top-notch gossip girl.
“You’re deplorable.” The Knight scoffs, rubbing their temples. “Fine. What do you know?”
╚══ ☾•°◉°•☽ ══╝
When Marc reads SECRET INSIDER: ‘DOCTOR STRANGE IS A SCUMBAG AND HERE’S WHY… as a Daily Bugle article, on the front page of all places, he nearly spits out his coffee.
Does he scan the article and figure out it's something he doesn't exactly remember spilling to a criminal a few days ago? Even though he had to be there—it comes to him in jagged pieces as he flips to through the paper.
Yes. Yes he does.
...Does he also tack it to his board of notes, alongside what he figured out from the criminal—an odd moon gang, a string of drug deals, and planned museum break ins across the globe?
Again, yes—why wouldn’t he?
He also figures out that, from an interview with Electro of all people, that Clea had scolded him over recent events so badly that he sulked in the Bar with No Name. Marc knows her wrath first hand. He smirks a bit too wide at the thought of Strange being yelled at.
The world may know him as Moon Knight, stoic and brutal, but he is also Marc Spector, Steven Grant, and Jake Lockley: The three most pettiest men in the world.
As he shuffles through the rest of the mail the Mission received—having been long forgotten when he sprinted to his room to tack the article to his board—he picks up a bill.
Now, a bill wouldn’t be odd if the Midnight Mission was not deemed a religious institution, and thus paid no taxes—courtesy from Steven. It leaves him dead in his tracks, stumped before he gently tears into the envelope.
Upon its opening, to Marc's dismay, he pulls out a substantial Damage Control bill totaling over five thousand dollars cited to:
MOON KNIGHT AND THE RED DINOSAUR.