Hmm. ( his coffee lid is placed down on his desk, oddly delicately (he'd prefer not to spill any, thanks), before pouring two sachets of sugar into his cup. for the moment, he doesn't think of diatrice — it doesn't occur to marc that lottie had remembered that comment at all — because marc hasn't done any of that with her. he hasn't taken her to kindergarten, hasn't met her teachers, hasn't done much of anything that a dad should do. that was all on marlene (and, he supposes, whoever she's with now, not that marc's ever asked or marlene's ever brought it up — not anything marc needs to know).
he thinks of elias instead, called in for countless meetings when marc had been at school. endless stories of how marc had done x or punched y, of how marc caused problems and how at a certain point, it didn't matter who started it (no-one particularly cared who started it), the issue was always with how it had ended. elias had always been very apologetic. he'd never tried to make excuses for marc's behaviour, never tried to reason it away as an understandable reaction. marc was supposed to be better than that. they — as a family, as a people — were supposed to be better than that.
he stirs his coffee with one of the stirrers and then stalls for time by hunting out a napkin. marc doesn't act, doesn't play pretend — not as such. he's stood in front of the mirror practising threats on occasion, not out of need but because he'd needed to check the suit was as it should be and found himself caught up in the moment.
(he's never asked if anyone else has ever done that but privately, he thinks they must. spider-man's jokes and nicknames are far too constant to be anything other than practised.)
but here — he's opened the door to something very different. pretend you're an upset parent. (and then he does think of diatrice.) he can do that, but his version of 'upset parent' is entirely unreasonable (lottie specifies in this scenario, he's waited for starbucks, so 'unreasonable' may be the default, may be precisely what she's imagining), but marc knows, too, that if he were an upset parent, his 'unreasonable' would slide straight past regular unreasonableness (yelling probably, name-calling maybe, pointing) and jump straight to 'quiet anger and threats'.
do not pass go, do not collect $200, you are never invited to any parent-teacher conferences.
he takes a sip of his coffee (warm), and god— he needed that. ) Starbucks wasn't really popular when I was at school, ( he says into the top of his cup. ) No pumpkin spice lattes back then.
[ Initially, she doesn't see his tending to his cup as stalling for time (the irony in this, as she was doing the exact same thing just moments before) β Lottie sees it as Marc cozying up and winding down. Not so much a ritual of sorts like how she makes her own cup every morning for her breakfast, but something he does to enjoy what he has. So she waits, takes the opportunity to take another sip of her own drink before the silence becomes a little too strange, having gone on so long, and then she raises a brow beneath her bangs.
Usually, it doesn't take him this long to enjoy his coffee. She's been around him long enough to know what's 'normal' (used loosely, here) behavior for him around her, what's 'normal' behavior for him and this is definitely toeing the line.
Did she ask something strange? What's taking him so long? She asks these questions as she brings her cup down, rests the bottom of it on her thigh and she shivers at the touch of cold through her leggings. And while his answer isn't what she asked for β by any means, really. There's no playful pretending or roleplaying, goofing around, it's just Marc completely aging himself in a way that makes Lottie reel because.. Well, he's not wrong?? ]
Oh my god! Don't remind me..
[ Also β of course he'd mention pumpkin spice lattes!! And of course he's making her think about the difference in age between them, another thing on a long list of things that are different about them. Which isn't bad, per se, because now she tunes in to the History Channel to shit all over it when she's bored, when she would've never gave it the time of day otherwise. But now she's thinking, oh god, he didn't probably. She grew up with it, had access to it pretty early on in her school life. It was more her sisters that enjoyed it β she'd maybe tag along to get something sweet, being the youngest gave her leeway to mooch off them, but that'd be it.
Lottie only managed to get an actual caffeine addiction β and a Starbucks card β somewhere in her last year of high school. And while she's made herself comfortable in more posh, local, places, she still visits Starbucks every now and then.
(And yes, sometimes it's for the stupid pumpkin spice lattes. She can't help but do it even if it's a joke at this point.)
She brings up her phone, has google open and ready to go. For what?? It may become more obvious after she asksβ ] How old are you again?
( marc, typically, doesn't care enough about how his coffee tastes to really bother with a routine. it's more, simply, that there are ways that he prefers his coffee to taste — if he has a choice, but if not, that's fine too. (choice had never been plentiful in his previous lines of work, after all.)
he's oblivious, then, to her thoughts, to her at-first belief that he's just making himself comfortable (marc and comfort aren't often two words that go hand-in-hand) until he finds himself started by her exclamation. (about pumpkin spice lattes? he's not sure). whatever it is, it does not become more obvious when she asks how old he is and instead, bemused, marc answers her question. ) Forty.
( give or take a couple of months. he doesn't know if they've actually spoken about ages before, not in terms of numbers. he knows she's younger than him — either that, or they've aged very, very differently — it's always been evident in their different cultural touchstones, in their references, in the way that there are things that marc just doesn't get about lottie and lottie doesn't get about marc. hobbies (well, maybe not hobbies) and interests that aren't just personality related.
she has google open, marc thinks — he can just about see the colours of the logo from here, bright primary colours that even he wouldn't mistake for anything else. it's not a calculator, so she's not trying to work out the year he was born (1981), though it occurs to him she might be trying to work out his age-proximity to the existence of pumpkin spice lattes. or even starbucks in general. ) —Why?
[ Why? Hah. That's such a dumb question, he must be so embarrassed right now even asking that! Why?? To google "coffee chains popular in the 90s?". She assumes that's when he was in high school, anyway, since forty is just a few years ahead of her oldest sister, a couple more than Rosie (the middle sister). A decade or so ahead of Lottie, the youngest.
Predictably, she actually doesn't learn anything from that google search, just realizes she'd have to do a whole lot of reading and clicking and she doesn't want that, so she tries again. She types in, "first pumpkin spice latte" and sees: 2003. Then: "first ever starbucks" (1912, and she thinks okay, overkill much?). She puts her phone face down, but still holds onto it. Ponders and does the math in her head. And then, a pointed sip of her tasty coffee drink. ]
I guess you're right.
[ It doesn't pain her to say it, but it sure does complicate this imaginary scenario she wants him to act out!! After a beat, she elaborates: ]
The pumpkin spice latte wasn't invented until 2003.. You were definitely out of high school by then.
( he watches her type, the blue glare of her phone screen shining into her face and telling him nothing. her face tells hims nothing either, other than she doesn't really like the first set of results, her fingers scrolling up and down briefly before she tries something else, then something else again, and finally, she agrees with him.
(it didn't need to take a google search—.)
and then she tells him when the first pumpkin spice lattes came out and— )
Iraq, ( he says on auto-pilot, not really thinking about. his tone is blunt realisation, the kind of thoughtfulness that comes from knowing something's important, but when the mouth works faster than the brain and words form faster than recognition puts them together. if she'd said 2001 or 2002, he probably wouldn't have said anything, but 2003 had been the year he'd been discharged (kicked out).
(hmm.) (moving on.)
he sips his own coffee, presses his lips together and tries again. ) I came back in 2003. ( briefly, anyway. it'd been the odd interim of his life, where there'd been a chance — fleeting — for him to reconcile with his family, and marc had pointedly decided no and he'd left (again). fighting — boxing — in underground rings because it was an easy source of money, because no-one asked questions and no-one really cared who he was other than how good he could throw and take a punch, and then he'd met jean-paul.
he has no way of making any of that — well, anything.
Lottie can't tell if this calls for an 'oh', or an 'oops', so she tries both, because it's not like Marc presents this as a bad thing, something she should treat delicately.
He simply just β hands it off to her. Not exactly presented as a fun fact, like how she does sometimes, giving information about herself for free on a silver platter in the hopes of impressing somebody. In fact, it looks like he isn't even thinking about it, when he says 'Iraq', probably isn't with how quickly he says it. In the seconds that follow, where he sips his coffee and tries his hand at a proper sentence, she thinks: shit. That's right.
Lottie's aware of his history, of vague events that are more markers for her reference and nothing explicitly personal (like the minute details of it all, because whatever Marc gives, Lottie will always take). The information escapes her because she always makes sure to be loose with it. Loose, like in a way that she's aware of what he does as Moon Knight but expressly decides to not think about it because it'll hurt her head and make her think.
And nobody, not even herself, wants her thinking. ]
How was it?
[ Coming back, she means, after all of that. She figures not exciting, if Marc's last comment is anything to go by (she doesn't key in to the fact he might mean: wow, a historical year for the world, Marc Spector returning home and pumpkin spice latte's being born!) but β Lottie finds herself asking, anyway. Lets her nail thumb at the lid of her cup, scraping ever so lightly at it. ]
I mean, I already know there was no PSL's for you, but..
Iraq? ( he asks quizzically, doubtfully, like he's not sure why she's asking the question or what she thinks his answer will be. it doesn't strike him as a particularly lottie-esque question: how was iraq? / oh, you know, messy. she barely tolerates knowing details about moon knight, let alone anything more gruesome (or, not necessarily more gruesome, but as uncomfortable). it hits him, after he half-questions what she means, that she means coming back and he has even less of an answer to that question: it was shit.
the sound of her nail against the plastic of her coffee cup lid is loud and distracting, though lottie doesn't seem to notice. his eyebrows arch upwards and he lifts his shoulders in a shrug. he almost says that he did everything he could to get out of chicago and the subsequent thought of going back hadn't been a barrel of laughs. ordinarily, marc does anything and everything he can to avoid talking about chicago, only mentions his family when he has to, or when struck by (very infrequent) bouts of sentimentality, but lottie hasn't presented him with an immediate, obvious avenue for skipping past the topic.
(except for coffee, but he can't think of a way to use that to move the conversation on, either.) ) —Hot. ( iraq, he means, not chicago, and in lieu of being able to think of an actual answer to her question that doesn't involve a degree of honesty marc is more comfortable avoiding, he tells her— ) Dishonorable discharge. There wasn't exactly a grand welcome home waiting for me. ( he doesn't say that his departure hadn't exactly been a cause for celebration, either. it'd been argument and disagreement after argument and disagreement; three years of non-communication. he doesn't admit that he hadn't enlisted out of a genuine desire to serve country, but because it'd been a way to escape his life and do something he felt he was good at.
if marc had wanted it to, his return home could have meant something, but he'd been determined to continue the status quo. ) I left as soon as I could. Probably missed out on all sorts of cultural touch points.
[ The words 'dishonorable discharge', frankly, mean little to Lottie. She hears it but doesn't quite grasp the meaning behind it, or the possible reasons why that'd happen. So it goes in one ear, out the other, a fact for her to ponder over months from now when she's reminded of it eventually. For now, she lets him talk, effectively gets what she wants when he tells her there wasn't a grand welcome waiting for him and that he left as soon as he could.
This time, it isn't hard for her to recall the context she needs for that β she remembers very clearly him talking about his family with her, right after he had made fun of her for subtly ("subtly") quoting Barney. Mostly because it's not often she talks about her family, Lottie refusing to even have let her closest circle know she even had siblings until she couldn't anymore (when Rosie bummed at her place for a few months during her almost-maybe divorce).
She figured that it's the same case for him, being cagey about details because it's easier to just ignore it. Because that's normal, right? So she listens, takes an appreciative sip of her coffee as she thinks, yeah, he did miss out on a lot. Lots of shows, lots of artists β 2003 was the year before she started high school, another year she was mousey, plain, wallflower Lottie Person. Quiet, soft, but terribly bitter. Maybe more than she is now, probably. She wonders how Marc was, at the time, if he was just a mini-Marc (sans the moon) or if he was entirely different.
And, god, she could think over that for what feels like hours, but she is very much still having a conversation. Very much is looking at Marc and thinking about how much he must've missed throughout his complicated life, thinking about her life in comparison. Sure, she could maybe pull up a list of everything iconic and amazing that's happened since then to, she doesn't know, make him feel included? But she doesn't. She stays off her phone and, tries to be nonchalant.
You know, casual. ]
I mean.. I started my blog in 2008.
[ Extremely casual. She brings her drink to her lips and raises her brows, trying not to toot her own horn because yes, she is totally implying her blog is a cultural touch point. And she is hoping he'll see it as a fun, silly, thing β a self aware jab at herself so Marc can.. She doesn't know? Take the out if he wants it? Laugh? ]
( marc doesn't tend to signify the passing of time by years — his life has tended towards stretches of time punctuated by stark events shaking up whatever status quo he's ended up in: marines, boxing, mercenary work, bushman, death, khonshu. moon knight. there are whole periods of his life he's unable to look back on and say 'that happened in this year', obliviousness to events outside of his own personal bubble co-existing alongside a penchant for not strictly caring unless it aligns with his interests.
(it doesn't help, of course, where his perception and understanding of, well, anything veers wildly from 'absolutely in keeping with reality' through to 'no, marc, that's just how you're perceiving it, the cops aren't actually jackals.')
she's quiet after he tells her he was dishonorably discharged and he doesn't know what that means to her (if it means anything at all). she's looking at him and he's not quite sure if she's trying to mentally map what he'd said out or whether she's just working out how to reply, so he takes a sip of his coffee and moves, finally, away from the desk.
(back to the window, and he leans forward, tilting his head. he still can't see the moon — too much glare from too many other lights, too much cloud cover, and they're on the ground floor — great for accessibility, less so for moon-watching. sometimes, he really misses spending time at his home in long island; the rest of the time, he remembers how empty it is, how large the space, and how suffocating the two make it feel.)
crucially, he can only see the reflection of lottie, dull and unclear, and he can't quite make out the shifts in her expression. she says she started her blog in 2008 and marc can't tell how she means it from her face, has to rely on how she says it: light and casual, and she raises her coffee cup as if to signify the poignancy (air quotes) of the event.
2008. he'd still been with bushman then, and jean-paul, though they were beginning to have questions, beginning to wonder about raul's brutality. jean-paul had always approached it — their work — with a matter-of-factness marc had never possessed, raul had never possessed. they'd all been in it for the money, but bushman had done it to feel power, to exert control and cause fear; marc had done it because it quietened something in him, because it had seemed to fill a hole he'd to-that-point found no other way of filling.
jean-paul had never wanted to work with bushman (bad news, he'd said, the worst of the worst), and marc had ignored him (think of the payday! he'd said, and jean-paul had gone along with it). marc has questioned, more than once, why it'd taken him so long to feel concerned by what raul did, and why jean-paul had stuck by the both of them for as long as he had, given who raul was.
(he knows the answer to that second question in a loose, vague way, though he still doesn't really understand why.)
lottie had been starting a blog — still at school, he realises, uncomfortably — whilst marc had been anywhere he could be that wasn't home, slowly discovering a conscience he'd desperately tried to ignore whilst still doing almost anything that was asked of him. the frown that pulls at his feature — his thoughtful frown, as opposed to his unhappy frown — precipitates a glance over his shoulder. he can see the edges of her shape in his periphery, but nothing more solid than that. )
Nice, ( softly, light amusement evident as his features relax. ) I missed that, too. Not much in the way of internet in the jungle. ( not that marc didn't spend time in civilisation, but the circles he'd run in hadn't placed 'casual computer use' anywhere near their list of 'fun and interesting ways to spend free time'. he's not sure he'd have really been confident in saying what a blog was back in 2008, even. )
[ Marc doesn't realize it, she thinks, that she can see his reflection from the window (not perfectly, because she doesn't have her glasses and he's still a tad blurry, even with how close he is to the window, with how sharp his reflection is as a result). Probably doesn't clue in that he's giving her more than his back, because he's too busy β what? Sightseeing? Lottie wonders why he does this. Maybe he's uncomfortable, is looking up at the moon like the way she looks into the lens of a camera, or a particularly nice photo of herself. Or maybe he's using it as a distraction, a way to physically give him some space from the topic at hand.
And in a way, she understands, so she lets him. Pretends like standing up to gaze at the window in the middle of a conversation is completely normal, a totally regular thing to do rather than face her properly. She angles herself towards said window, stares at his back β clad in black, not white. Stares at the way his hair curls and sticks out awkwardly from being stuffed inside a mask for the majority of the night. Her eyes are outlining the curve of his shoulder, remembering it's where his cape sat and trying to recall how it looked β how it might look, now, with the distance β when she sees his reflection shift. Lottie doesn't catch the detail of it (if she did, she'd feel pride at recognizing his different frowns), but she can at least guess she must've said something right for him to sound like that. For him to look like that.
..Not that she can really see much of it, with that barebones glance. She's assuming his expression is good, if he's letting her know this much: he was in the jungle in 2008.
Her brows furrow.
Huh.
He was in the jungle in 2008. And Lottie was, what, barely meeting Sunny and painting her nails at home because she was too intimidated to go to the nail salon? Being a baby blogger with big aspirations of being iconic and relatable? What the fuck?
The thing is for Lottie, she does define everything by years, by details. Because as a blogger, if nothing goes on in her life, she loses money. Relevancy, can't generate content and can't prove to companies how profitable she is. As a result, Lottie knows exactly when something happens, when she met someone, deep down knows exactly what outfit she wore too. She knows the exact year she saw her sister's face while perusing Netflix, and how angry she was seeing her gain all the fame she worked for (for years) in a matter of seconds (2015). Remembers the exact year she met Esther for the first time (2012). When she started her friendship with Misty (2011). The time she interviewed with NYLON JAPAN (2014). Her ten year blogiversary (2018). When Sunny broke up with her (2016), when she met Caroline (2016). ]
Yeah, [ She agrees, tone just as soft, after a beat. And because it is kinda funny (the lack of internet is totally why he didn't follow her in the jungle, obviously), she lets out a laugh. Something light, ] I mean, the signal probably sucked.
[ Sometimes she forgets just how different their lives have been, and it's easy for her to do it, because Lottie is so impossibly self obsessed that people outside of her field of view genuinely don't exist. Sure, Marc has made a definitive spot for himself in her world, but she only sees him as the Marc in front of her. Moon Knight, the guy in the suit and the guy in the cowl, Marc Spectorβ always with a little stubble on him and a bruise blossoming somewhere. Sometimes she sees it, sometimes she doesn't, and it always depends on his state of dress. Usually, when she pictures him, it's sans his mask and gloves. Teetering between Moon Knight and plain old Marc. She associates him with odd hours, coffee, being weird and curt. A little funny.
She never thinks of his history, just his day and how it relates to hers.
Now, she can add 'the jungle' to that. And it's odd, the information. Interesting? Odd. Lottie can't quite place it, but what she feels isn't bad, per se. In a way this is nice, him opening up to her. In another way, she's not sure what to do with the information. Arguably, he is saying so little, but he is implying so much. ]
I still have some old stuff up on my Instagram. [ AKA, he can still see it. Technically make up for that missed 'event'. There's a reason why she has some of the nicer photos of herself still up, after all. People love nostalgia (she loves nostalgia). ] And the stuff I deleted, got reposted. That's the thing about the internetβ nothing ever really goes away.
( marc is not a still man, he never has been. where his father had always sought out books and academia, marc had been the opposite: his solace had been in movement. it's different now, looking out and searching for the moon — he'd always drifted towards it after sudan, finding himself seeking it out at nights when it was just him and marlene (no moon knight); steven had done it, too, when the lines between them had blurred and neither one was quite sure what they thought of khonshu, whether they believed divinity had brought them back or if it'd been luck. he'd wanted to hear khonshu's voice then, wanted guidance, wanted to understand what he was doing in a way that was clearer than the odd, strange satisfaction he felt as moon knight.
khonshu never had spoken then, there'd never been any whispers in his ear, from the corners of rooms. marc had felt lost and none of that had changed when khonshu had made himself known — no, marc had somehow managed to lose himself even more, and the only times he'd sought the moon's shape out then had been between sleep and wakefulness, when frequent (night after night after night—) nightmares stirred him. ("I'd forgotten this part", marlene had said once, after one of their many reunions and waking to find marc stood silently at their bedroom window).
he doesn't ask anything these days — not for guidance, not for help — but for as challenging, as strained, as difficult as his relationship with khonshu is, the cool, silver glow of moonlight is comforting. he doesn't expect lottie to understand — and frankly, it's either this or fidgeting, a propensity for moving from furniture to floor and back again, swapping positions as if he'll find answers or whatever words he's looking for in movement rather than stillness.
(he only does it when his mind's stuck on something.)
he and lottie are talking like there isn't a chasm between their life experiences, like marc wasn't in the process of amassing more funds than he'd ever be able to spend in the shape of blood money in 2008, like lottie wasn't in the process of being a not quite regular teenager, but certainly one with more direction that marc had ever possessed before sudan. more ambition, more drive that didn't take the form of bruised knuckles and blood and guns. talking as if of course the only reason that marc hadn't known of her blog — weirdness of a man in his mid-to-late twenties following a much younger woman's fashion and (presumably) lifestyle blog aside — was lack of internet connection.
she mentions she has some old stuff up on instagram and marc knows what that is (steven has an account — marc thinks he's on most social media sites of a certain type — he'd said something about linkedin once, about marc's lack of interest in anything remotely practical not pertaining to moon knight meaning that all of his (steven's) hardworked for connections were going to absolute waste—.). marc's memories are locked tightly in boxes — physical ones — and stored in cupboards he refuses to look in until he's overwhelmed with the crushing awareness of who he is (was, has been, can't escape). they're in police reports, military reports, and newspaper cuttings. confidential files that, like lottie's deleted instagram posts will also never go away.
he's relieved to an extent that he's not sure he'd ever be able to describe to know that at least his past was never documented like that, but he doesn't quite know what to say. it's not that he feels like he has to be careful with what he says to lottie about his past, about what he's done and what he does, but that he's aware — acutely — that like reese, like soldier, she didn't know him then. that the marc spector that marc talks about in the third person, the one he barely bothers to disguise his loathing of, is one that isn't always easy to reconcile with who he tries to be here and now. it's a disconnect that feels overwrought until he slips up and backslides and it's — oh, right, of course. marc spector: unpredictable, unreliable, crazy, whoever expected anything else.
half to lottie, half to her reflection, he almost tells her that they don't just have the internet to thank for things never going away — it'd always seemed to marc that whatever a person wanted to bury, it always found a way of making itself known again. that it's not often that secrets or private shame gets carried to the grave.
but he doesn't. he makes a noise, a generic hum of consideration that doesn't really say one way or the other if he'd want to see lottie's instagram from a decade or more ago (weird thought). )
Everything sucked, ( he says instead. not just the signal, but the heat, the food (half the time), the company (almost all of the time — which is an exaggeration he won't admit to, because he'd found a way to tolerate bushman then, and as raul had grown worse, marc had started to grow better, the in-betweens papered over with mediocre jobs, days and nights spent in shitty towns with shitty booze). ) —Especially the bugs. You'd hate it.
[ She didn't know him then, arguably only knows some things about him now β and sometimes Lottie doesn't really understand the extent of what she's learned (because the rabbit hole of Marc Spector and his extremely complicated life runs deep). Can only picture vague, palatable, things that she comes up with, herself, because she's hesitant to ask for a clearer vision on what the hell he means by some things. It gives her plenty of leeway, though, like now, when he mentions the bugs.
Normal bugs she despises. Any type of insect or creepy crawly, anything that can get into her skin or under her clothes she can't handle. It pleases her in a way for her to know that he's caught onto her well enough to figure that out himself. But now she has to put two and two together. The first two being: the jungle, and the second being: the bugs. And, god, she thinks Marc must've really hated being at home to voluntarily choose that over modern day comforts. Where did he even sleep, then? The ground? Ew.
(Maybe that's where his penchant for hardly sleeping and staying up absurdly late came from? Lottie tries to connect dots, bits and pieces of him that she knows to give a reason for something she's already accepted as just being a fun and quirky Marc thing (like her codependence on her fans for validation, or her caffeine addiction! It's fun and quirky!).) ]
Oh, yeah, god, of course I'd hate it. I barely even like the weather in New York!
[ Which is to say: as a person who is allergic to everything, and whose ability to go outside is entirely based on the season.. She hates any kind of weather. Hated it in Los Angeles, hates it virtually anywhere she goes, even if the place is nice. She hates any shift, any change, because it always affects her somehow. Dry air? Massive humidity? Nosebleeds. Windy? Pollen in the air? Sneezing, headaches, inability to stop crying and being gross, her skin gets red. Fur? Animals? A day without her hand sanitizer? Allergy attack. ]
And I really don't like the bugs here. [ She scoffs to herself, ] Knowing my ass I'd probably get bit and die from some rando disease nobody has heard of.
( marc has some inkling of how little lottie really wants to know about who he was (is, maybe) — marlene had been the same way, although marlene had less of an excuse for it. marlene had met him first, had encountered marc spector, comma, mercenary, and still opted to spend time with him after her father had been killed. she'd met him, got to know him, got to know steven and decided, quite intently, that marc wasn't the man she wanted to know after all, steven was. had decided — before marc had been honest with her, when marc had presented himself and steven and jake as aspects of the same man, identities he could shrug in and out of much the same way he did clothes — that marc was to be left in the past, buried in sand.
steven had never elaborated on anything more than what marc had ever elaborated on: marc was a bad man, had a terrible personality, reckless and violent; steven was his opposite, capable of appreciating the finer things in life, and neither of them had wanted to clarify that it wasn't as simple as all that.
and truthfully, marc isn't much better now. yes, he's a lot more at ease — in a very general sense — with who he and steven and jake are, but it's not something he ever discusses unless he has to. lottie doesn't ask questions, not really — she asks questions about marc now, asks things of marc, but it's all kept pointedly separate, as if there are barriers she's thoroughly uninterested in crossing and for the most part, it works. lottie allows marc to pretend like his life isn't absurd and weird, and as if none of it's entirely of his own making.
she latches on to the mention of bugs like there's nothing bizarre about any of their conversation, like they're discussing a trip to the middle of nowhere a couple of states away instead of marc participating in unspeakable atrocities countries and oceans away.
for his part, he doesn't really know what lottie's deal is exactly — he's noticed she's particular about the weather, particular about when she goes outside, about where she goes. (he's been tempted, on occasion, to simply put it down to 'weird superstitions, possibly completely fictitious'.) he's noticed, too, that she's particular about her food — but who isn't these days? and has never quiet decided if it's dietary requirements or just some kind of diet she follows.
and because she's never really delved too deep into his story, he's repaid her in kind and never made a point of asking much more than she's been willing to share of her own accord.
she says she barely likes the weather in new york and marc's lips twitch as if he wants to say something. he gets partway through thinking about asking if there's much she actually likes and thinks the better of it, letting her continue. compared to chicago, there's more sun in new york, is generally less cold and of everywhere that's marc been and spent time, is probably the closest he can think of in terms of being pleasant year round — meaning her scoff earns a sharp exhale of breath that's not quite a scoff of his own, but does nothing to imply he disagrees with lottie's assertion. )
No-one would get you close enough to the jungle for that to happen.
[ There's a measured sip of her latte as she considers the idea of it. Not that she ever would go somewhere that rural β Lottie would sooner die than have to even sacrifice any of her comforts for that, for anything, really. And honestly, she only bothers humoring it because the image is kind of ridiculous. No-one would get her close enough, no-one would even let her entertain the idea because she'd just be awful and terrible and bratty. Crying all the time, complaining, wanting to leave immediately.
Which is, to be fair, how a lot of her trips turn out even in more metropolitan places. Places like New York, places that come down to: how many buildings can we fit in one block. How many bougie bars and pop ups can we squeeze in one street with no public parking?
And she has to stop the concept right there, because then she's circling back to the reason why the jungle was even mentioned. Is reminded of things she's pointedly avoiding asking since she can't relate, can't offer any sort of insightful commentary to Marc's life. In some way doesn't care, either, because that's just how Lottie is with comfort and being 'kind' and 'compassionate' β it's difficult if she can't find a reason to find something.. Normal? Genuine? To say? Sure, she can curate responses online to sound congenial, but she can't do it, real time, in person. She thinks if she did (be fake) Marc would know, anyhow β they may not know everything about each other, but they've been orbiting in each other's spaces enough to know their quirks.
(Besides, now that she knows they're okay and moving past their most recent spat β AKA, not contacting each other for a few days, arguably something that can be normal and fine for anyone if not for the way they had left things β there's little reason for her to care. Why ruin a good thing? Something something don't fix what isn't broken?) ]
They'd have to drag me kicking and screaming.
[ Obviously, her tone implies. Which, really, she doesn't even need to do β they both know how picky she is. She slides out of her chair, stretches her limbs out as she wanders over to linger beside him. Mostly because she knows if she leans back on his chair to stand he might be upset, and she doesn't want that. So she decides to gently ease her weight onto the wall right beside the window, angles herself so she'll face him. ]
( back still turned to the room at large, he misses the way that she stretches, misses the way she internally reaches the conclusion he'd tell her off if she leant in his chair. he doesn't miss the quiet sound of her footsteps and he tilts his head just enough to show acknowledgement, watching (sort of but not really) her approach out of the corner of his eyes until she's there, beside him, leaning against the wall and telling him she prefers paris. )
Ugh. ( it's said without him really thinking about it, just an instinctive utterance of thought and feeling: he hates paris. yes, there are nice restaurants and the pastries are good, but the same can be said for almost anywhere in france. the only — only — thing he thinks paris has going for it is the pervasive lack of interest parisians have in anyone else at all. parisians, frenchie had explained, hate everyone and marc, actually, had been fine with that.
curiously, then, he asks— ) Have you ever been to Paris? ( he thinks it could go either way — yes and she'd avoided the scummier, scuzzier parts of the city, pointedly ignore the pervading stench of piss down streets (both side streets and otherwise) and, bizarrely, at almost every metro station except charles de gaulle.
or the answer's no and she'd just like to go, imagines it be a magical place of whatever it is that people actually want to go to paris for. )
It's a dump, ( he adds, a little quieter and partially to himself. a civilised dump, he supposes, a shithole in ways that was entirely different to the pits and dregs of morality and humanity he'd ended up during most of his travels, but not one he was inclined to like regardless.
[ Now thatβ that, gets her to laugh. His instinctual repulsion at the mention of Paris. Sure, Lottie stayed in a pretty nice part of the city, but that doesn't mean she wasn't privy to just about everything else. The grodier streets, the rats, the smell that even worked through her allergy ridden nostrils (which, yes, meant she shouldn't smell anything.. And yetβ). ]
A couple times.
[ She says, after a moment, subtly thrilled that she actually has something in common with Marc that isn't the coffee places they go to whenever it's late, or the odd hours they keep. So, he's been to Paris. And he absolutely fucking hates it, which arguably is funny enough all considering what he puts himself through on the daily. Paris is his breaking point, somehow. It's a dump, he insists. ]
Fashion week is kind of a big thing for us influencers. [ She explains, in case he was wondering if she was ever visiting for work or for play. And it is always for work, always to network and put herself out there. She shrugs a single shoulder. ] I'm still not that plugged into New York's.
[ She says just as quiet as he did, an admission of the real reason why she even moved to New York. There's no "fashion weeks" in Los Angeles, only movie premieres and photo ops. The real opportunities are in locations like this, like New York, or Paris, or London, Milan, even. There's hardly any time to sight see, when she's too busy preparing looks, pieces, practicing what angles she looks best at in the hotel room mirror. ]
(fashion week. even as his eyes widen in acceptance of her answer, his expression says that fashion weeks and associated events are that far from being anywhere near marc's mental map of 'things he should (and does) care about' that he would've never reached the conclusion by himself. his understanding of what lottie does is very generic and mired in vagueness. not even steven cares about fashion week in any shape or form, and he's the only one of the three that'd come even remotely close to understanding its importance.
his gaze stays settled on lottie for several moments. he notes that whilst she said that compared to ending up in a jungle, she'd prefer paris (obviously), she didn't actually say if she liked the city or if she just liked what it provided her with. marc imagines it's the latter, can't quite marry the thought of the lottie he knows enjoying the paris he's familiar with — and they're similar in the way that though neither have said it, marc doesn't travel for pleasure, either. he's done enough of it for unpleasant reasons throughout his life, been to enough places and met the worst sorts of people that he knows he wouldn't know what to do on vacation.
marlene had tried — routinely, pointedly — sometimes telling marc (steven) her plans, sometimes surprising him. on each and every occasion, marc (not steven) would bury his moon knight clothing and easily carryable equipment at the bottom of a bag or a suitcase, and he'd find — inevitably — a way to keep himself busy, whilst steven and marlene and even frenchie would try to posit that, actually, relaxing isn't such a bad thing.
he doesn't have anything to say about fashion week, no placations to offer about lottie not being as involved in new york's fashion — bubble? as she'd like to be. )
Israel's nice, ( he offers instead. it's a sharp pivot from what he'd been talking about before, the closest he's got to pleasant memories. his father had friends there and though marc had never been good at keeping in touch, he'd visited on the infrequent occasions he ended up in the country. ) Nice weather, good food. (it has its difficulties, he doesn't say, because everywhere has its problems. it's not a reflection of its people. ) I don't know much about the fashion scene, though.
[ Leaning up against the wall like this allows Lottie a great vantage point to actually see his expression, this time, instead of from the murky reflection of a window. She said 'fashion week' and Marc does that thing with his face that tells her he didn't even consider that. That events like that are typically so far out of his idea of existence, awareness, that he didn't even think it to be a reason why she'd even go to Paris. She sips at her drink and wonders what he had thought, instead. Wonders about how much he actually knows what her career (as strange and still technically new to the world, it is) actually entails. Which β fair. It's not like Lottie knows what a lot of his job entails, either, other than the obvious. And she hasn't explained anything to him, the word 'influencer' so ingrained in everyone's vocabulary she just assumes he must know, because everyone else does.
But Marc isn't like everyone else. In fact, he's so unlike everyone else that it's refreshing, makes her feel a little less weird about how truly feral she can get sometimes in the privacy of her own home.
Oh, but her thoughts cut short. Ease away into their silence because Marc is staring at her. For an absurdly long time. She wonders if he's even aware of what he's doing, for how long he's doing it, with the way Lottie starts to squirm and shift under his gaze. Feels her cheeks run pink because whatβ is something in her teeth? On her face? What is he thinking? Should she say something? Explain it a little more? Does Marc.. Is he wanting to know what she does?? Her lips part, more of an exhale, really, ]
Uhβ
[ Israel's nice, he says, abruptly out of nowhere (it feels abrupt to her because she's been hyperfocusing on herself, just how he's been focusing on staring and thinking at her). But she'll take itβ closes her lips as he continues and she finally sees where he's going. What Marc offers, arguably, isn't a lot, but it's still nice to hear from him. To know that there's one place somewhere in his memory that he happens to enjoy, not for any reason like crime fighting but for good food and nice weather. She's never been to Israel β has only been where work has taken her and where her family has forced her to go (Japan, to visit her mom's side of the family, and Sweden, to visit her father's).
There's a soft, curious, quirk to her lips when he's finished. And even though she knows what he means, she still asks him: ] Fashion scene in Israel? Or fashion scene in general?
( marc looks away from lottie when she asks him what he meant. she knows what he meant and he knows she knows. ) I've been told Tel Aviv's cool. ( is his response, then, deliberately bypassing both of her questions.
he's been, once or twice, but more often to jerusalem. he shoots her a sidelong glance, watchful and appraising as he weighs up what he knows about lottie (odd facts and inferences based on time spent together where they don't really talk about anything, a companionable kind of non-communication that marc doesn't hate) versus what he knows about tel aviv: architecture lottie wouldn't necessarily care for but for the photograph opportunities. markets she'd enjoy for much the same reason and would be strangely careful about eating anything from (marc's never quite been sure what her deal is — he's noticed she avoid gluten, noticed she always opts for a non-dairy milk, and he's never quite been sure if it's because alternative diets are cool these days or if it's because she genuinely suffers from a host of intolerances).
his lips quirk and he hides the barest hint of a smile behind his coffee cup as he adds, ) It's where the kids hang out. (is it?
marc is not always as ignorant as he plays at. he knows, vaguely, what an influencer is and does, but he's never cared to discover the minutiae, never felt particularly inclined to discover what about it specifically is employable and what it means in a broad, day-to-day sense. lottie spends a lot of time on her phone (fine, people do that generally anyway, people that aren't marc), she spends a lot of time on her laptop (also fine, that's how a lot of people do jobs generally), but the details of marketing oneself and one's life is a tedious and horrifying concept to marc given his deep-rooted desire to be personally invisible.
(moon knight's different).
he has never cared for fashion, not as a kid, not as a teenager, and certainly not as an adult. lottie's shared her appreciation for his suit — it is nice, even if most people get fixated on the 'but it's white!' aspect — but nothing else. steven cares the most, is fussy and particular in a way that neither marc nor jake can relate to, though jake is particular about his own sense of style in his own, jake-like way.
marc dresses for dull practicality. ) So at a guess, with my limited knowledge, that's probably where you want to go to get your fashion fix.
[ There is a big part of her that wants to bite out that she is not a kid, because she personally always (always, always!) feels like one. It doesn't matter how many birthdays pass (she is nearing 30, Christ), how many events have warped her personally, she will always feel like everything but an adult. That she's messing up somehow and she isn't as responsible as she should be, as functional. But she knows Marc is just being cheeky, so she forces back the instinctual frustration that might coat her face, her tone. It's another reminder at their difference in age, years (many of them), that he's in the same age bracket as her sisters. And god, she knows he's being cheeky but some weird part of her brain thinks: of course he thinks she's a kidβ she spends all of her time online like one (it's different, her time online is an investment in her brand, her name, and so what if she farts around looking at people's stories incessantly?!).
So she tries to think of it differently, that he's aging himself instead of aging her, and it only manages to lessen the weird swirl of feelings settling in her chest. Arguably, is that even better? Reminding herself Marc is older than her and a dad (she will, truly, never get over this β Marc screams bachelor having an always-crisis and not a dad!)? She lets her gaze sweep over him, wonders if this is what she gets for asking when she already knew what he meant, if this is some weird sort of karma being inflicted on her.
Really, she knows Marc wouldn't purposely inflict her with this, if he knew how deep her insecurities ran. How unsure of herself she really felt, how deep the roots go into her brain. She tries to run off this, lets herself fiddle with the straw in her drink when he announces that's where she'd get her 'fashion fix'. He is thinking about her, ultimately, and she should be satisfied with that, and yetβ. ]
Tel Aviv.. [ She repeats, after a second of dedicated thought (read: giving a slow nod and humming), sounding out the name on her tongue. Marc is mentioning it, so that means it must be worthwhile. Also, Marc mentioned it, so she has to go at some point. ] ..Okay. I'll have Esther pencil that in for me.
[ Her phone is out of reach, having been placed on his desk before she came to lean beside him, so she'll make a note to text her about it. Secretly, she hopes she'll actually remember, because she wants to let it be known to Marc that she pays attention to what he says. That she remembers, is putting an active effort into what they have, because isn't that what friendship is? She tilts her head until the crown of it rests softly against the wall. Her tone is curious, bordering on even, when she asks. ]
( it hits marc infrequently that he and lottie share a similar impulsiveness. marc has rarely, if ever, made considered, thoughtful decisions. he's wholly emotional — for as much as he's deeply, deeply prefer not to be — driven almost entirely by his heart than his brain, and as soon as lottie says she'll have esther pencil tel aviv in, he realises it's not dissimilar to what he's always tended to do.
marlene would comment, unhappily, on how much time was being spent on moon knight and not enough time on their relationship, and so marc — or steven, or jake — would impulsively book a holiday, not quite anywhere they last remembered marlene mentioning, but somewhere that'd seem like marc (or steven, or jake—) was listening to marlene, reflecting on what she'd said, giving her (them) a vacation together, but then it'd inevitably be somewhere with a link to marc's past (always marc's, because marc is the only one of them with a past worth escaping) and marlene would — well, she'd be unhappy, of course.
he's done it with greer, too — arguments and fraught conversations resulting in considered but frankly spur of the moment gifts in lieu of a good apology (marc has never been good at those). with frenchie, it'd been impulsive invitations, a resolute ignoring of issues as to say 'look, water under the bridge, look, let's do this, just like the old days'.
lottie says she'll pencil tel aviv in and he's — startled. surprised, though not unpleasantly. it's world's apart from the start of their conversation, the difficulty in clarity, in being open and honest with each other. it's a strange sensation to realise it's a maybe decision made off the back of marc's frankly poor knowledge of what's fun and exciting to do in israel, and though it's not unpleasant, it's not a situation marc has found him in often with friends — marc hasn't many, for one, and for two, he's often the one making decisions and leaving little room for opinion.
generally, it makes its way back to him in the form of 'god, you make this really difficult, marc'. )
I haven't been abroad in a while, ( he admits carefully, a not-quite answer to her question. that's the second surprise, the implied invitation, and he thinks of all the times he'd travelled with marlene. he doesn't think he needs to tell lottie that he's not the most involved person to travel with.
(that is, he doesn't think he needs to mention it, but he probably should.)
he doesn't think he's travelled since — since marlene before left for france. he wonders if anna's still living in jerusalem, if any of his father's friends are still there. it's not a long journey from tel aviv — an hour and a half, maybe. he'd have to ask badr to look after the mission. ) —I don't know how much of a valuable addition I'd be to your Instagram.
[ It is a comment said entirely to prove that she had been listening, that she cares about his interests and hearing about his experiences, even if she's liable to forget about it when this is all said and done. It's why she had even asked him if he'd come β half because she expected this type of not-answer, and half because she knows it'd never happen (probably).
But truthfully, she's never considered Marc to travel for fun β he's too busy doing his Moon Knight stuff here, has sunken his roots into the soil so deep she doesn't think he'd ever leave if given the chance. Plus, it'd be hard finding a replacement if he wanted to take time for himself, probably.. Not a lot of people willing to moonlight (hah) as Moon Knight (hah) for a week or so while Marc gets his tan on.
She doesn't even get as far as imagining just what type of person he'd even be on a trip (she'd start with what white themed ensemble he'd shove himself into first before fantasizing about anything related to group activities) before he continues. And it's minute β tiny, so little it's a real blink and you miss it β the way her lips tug down. She knows he doesn't mean anything by it, whether he'd be valuable to her Instagram, her brand, or not, but it makes her stomach twist oddly.
It's something everyone assumes of her, of most influencers, and they're not wrong. Lottie, genuinely, only goes somewhere if she can curate content from it. She never goes out for fun, only goes out into the world with the intent of finding the spot with the best lighting. Because who doesn't love a selfie as a story update, you know? But she doesn't do much of that whenever they're together β she thought he'd understand that? It'd also be the same? Is that what he thinks of her? Idly, she bites at her lip, glances off to the side as her expression settles on: self-conscious.
It's only vaguely defensive, the way her words sound out of her lips. ]
..I don't post everything to Instagram.
[ She wouldn't post him if he doesn't want her to, she means. ]
( finding someone to look after his area of manhattan would be the easiest part, really — when one of them ("them", superheroes, vigilantes, whatever) was out of action for any reason, personal feelings stopped mattering. everyone else would step up and help out, and be ready to have that conversation of 'so what the fuck happened?' if necessary, though certainly not always.
marc's unpopularity aside, his poor reputation and past reliance on questionable methods to get the job done is ultimately inconsequential. he knows he's fucked up, he knows it's going to take a while to pull back whatever goodwill he might have fostered over the years (here and there, back and forth between other bad decisions), but he knows too, that if anyone had any problems with what he was doing now, he'd have heard about it.
he'd have another visitor at his door and it wouldn't be a friendly face like greer. it'd be t'challa, or captain america, or goddamn tony stark (again), and marc's tired of those visits. bored of the repetitive conversations. the black panther had given him an olive branch that he's only sort of accepted in the form of tigra, but the lack of anything else says that what marc's doing now is acceptable to the rest of them.
clea owes him a favour (well, not really, but they're friends). wong doesn't quite owe him a favour, but wong's a good guy (although marc's aware he should probably stop pissing off the various sorcerer supremes of the world). daredevil (and there's a guy who's had a few problems of his own). spider-man (ditto). castle's busy having a personal crisis of his own and despite how many times they've teamed up over the years, marc doesn't think he has it in him to ever go to him for help. (khonshu and his "oh, that one works for another god and his god must be very pleased", like marc hasn't done enough for him over the years, the fucking dick.) but he thinks he could probably even scare 8-ball enough to keep an eye out for him.
so no, finding someone else to keep an eye on his territory wouldn't be the issue. the issue would absolutely be marc giving up control of it all for long enough. that is: possible, but challenging.
he doesn't catch the shift in lottie's expression, but he does catch the glance to the side, does notice the difference in the way she answers him now to mere moments before and he doesn't know what he's said. instagram? her—problem is his comment about instagram? )
I didn't—. ( abrupt pause; reconsideration. if she elaborated a little more on what she meant, precisely, marc would explain that he didn't mean it like that. he'd meant that their values are different. he meant he's not fun and doesn't do fun things, isn't someone many people have historically made fun memories with. that, objectively, there must have been something that'd kept marlene around for as long as she was but now, marc's not really sure what it was. ) That's not what I meant.
[ He pauses, and she just waits for him to say something.. What? She doesn't know. The only thing she knows for a fact is that she isn't going to say anything, doesn't particularly want to. Elaborating on how she feels means letting him know she has feelings, and deeply values his own opinion of her. And Lottie, having done that throughout the night (be hurt, and let him know she does feel), doesn't want to give him more. Is willing to let him know she is listening enough to consider a trip to a place he recommends, a place she thinks he is familiar with, but not enough to outwardly say she is hurt by what she thinks he is implying.
He says that's not what he meant, after a beat, and the good thing is she doesn't immediately hop into what is instinctual for her when she's feeling insecure: bitter denial. She's quiet, but it's not because she doesn't believe him. It's because she still wants to try and communicate without letting slip too much of her thoughts, because she's not sure how her words will sound coming out of her lips. ]
Okay..
[ So if he doesn't think she's a crazy clout goblin, then.. ]
So what did you mean?
[ She asks, tone curious and vaguely guarded, like she's preparing herself for an answer she might not like. ]
( she asks what he meant and he makes a short, low noise of impatient frustration because actually, he's not very good at putting it into words. they're there — the I'm not funs and the you see, what normally happens is I get distracted and I forget about plans; or the I'm not very good at letting things go—. but verbalising them, vocalising them is not something that's ever made marc particularly comfortable — no, half the time, it's as if the words are there but that they get lost somewhere mid-journey between brain and mouth and what comes out instead is what he thinks ought to be said instead of what should be said.
marc's constantly caught between caring too much about what people think of him and deciding what does it matter to ever give a thought to his opinion on someone else mattering. that'd been the problem with jeff: marc had never had an ounce of time for the boy, left him stranded in brooklyn, and was more or less the reason he became a villain.
(and then marc had killed him. fortunately, lottie is not jeff.)
true to form, though, he doesn't think (again) of how lottie interprets his actions and his comments. he inhales, makes a small gesture with his hand that doesn't mean anything (is instead simply something to do), and says— )
I meant— ( and immediately pauses. how does he say what he meant? his comment was a commentary on her instagramming, it was a commentary on himself—! ) I'm not very present.
( that's it, right? that's about the shape of it. )
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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he thinks of elias instead, called in for countless meetings when marc had been at school. endless stories of how marc had done x or punched y, of how marc caused problems and how at a certain point, it didn't matter who started it (no-one particularly cared who started it), the issue was always with how it had ended. elias had always been very apologetic. he'd never tried to make excuses for marc's behaviour, never tried to reason it away as an understandable reaction. marc was supposed to be better than that. they — as a family, as a people — were supposed to be better than that.
he stirs his coffee with one of the stirrers and then stalls for time by hunting out a napkin. marc doesn't act, doesn't play pretend — not as such. he's stood in front of the mirror practising threats on occasion, not out of need but because he'd needed to check the suit was as it should be and found himself caught up in the moment.
(he's never asked if anyone else has ever done that but privately, he thinks they must. spider-man's jokes and nicknames are far too constant to be anything other than practised.)
but here — he's opened the door to something very different. pretend you're an upset parent. (and then he does think of diatrice.) he can do that, but his version of 'upset parent' is entirely unreasonable (lottie specifies in this scenario, he's waited for starbucks, so 'unreasonable' may be the default, may be precisely what she's imagining), but marc knows, too, that if he were an upset parent, his 'unreasonable' would slide straight past regular unreasonableness (yelling probably, name-calling maybe, pointing) and jump straight to 'quiet anger and threats'.
do not pass go, do not collect $200, you are never invited to any parent-teacher conferences.
he takes a sip of his coffee (warm), and god— he needed that. ) Starbucks wasn't really popular when I was at school, ( he says into the top of his cup. ) No pumpkin spice lattes back then.
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Usually, it doesn't take him this long to enjoy his coffee. She's been around him long enough to know what's 'normal' (used loosely, here) behavior for him around her, what's 'normal' behavior for him and this is definitely toeing the line.
Did she ask something strange? What's taking him so long? She asks these questions as she brings her cup down, rests the bottom of it on her thigh and she shivers at the touch of cold through her leggings. And while his answer isn't what she asked for β by any means, really. There's no playful pretending or roleplaying, goofing around, it's just Marc completely aging himself in a way that makes Lottie reel because.. Well, he's not wrong?? ]
Oh my god! Don't remind me..
[ Also β of course he'd mention pumpkin spice lattes!! And of course he's making her think about the difference in age between them, another thing on a long list of things that are different about them. Which isn't bad, per se, because now she tunes in to the History Channel to shit all over it when she's bored, when she would've never gave it the time of day otherwise. But now she's thinking, oh god, he didn't probably. She grew up with it, had access to it pretty early on in her school life. It was more her sisters that enjoyed it β she'd maybe tag along to get something sweet, being the youngest gave her leeway to mooch off them, but that'd be it.
Lottie only managed to get an actual caffeine addiction β and a Starbucks card β somewhere in her last year of high school. And while she's made herself comfortable in more posh, local, places, she still visits Starbucks every now and then.
(And yes, sometimes it's for the stupid pumpkin spice lattes. She can't help but do it even if it's a joke at this point.)
She brings up her phone, has google open and ready to go. For what?? It may become more obvious after she asksβ ] How old are you again?
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he's oblivious, then, to her thoughts, to her at-first belief that he's just making himself comfortable (marc and comfort aren't often two words that go hand-in-hand) until he finds himself started by her exclamation. (about pumpkin spice lattes? he's not sure). whatever it is, it does not become more obvious when she asks how old he is and instead, bemused, marc answers her question. ) Forty.
( give or take a couple of months. he doesn't know if they've actually spoken about ages before, not in terms of numbers. he knows she's younger than him — either that, or they've aged very, very differently — it's always been evident in their different cultural touchstones, in their references, in the way that there are things that marc just doesn't get about lottie and lottie doesn't get about marc. hobbies (well, maybe not hobbies) and interests that aren't just personality related.
she has google open, marc thinks — he can just about see the colours of the logo from here, bright primary colours that even he wouldn't mistake for anything else. it's not a calculator, so she's not trying to work out the year he was born (1981), though it occurs to him she might be trying to work out his age-proximity to the existence of pumpkin spice lattes. or even starbucks in general. ) —Why?
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Predictably, she actually doesn't learn anything from that google search, just realizes she'd have to do a whole lot of reading and clicking and she doesn't want that, so she tries again. She types in, "first pumpkin spice latte" and sees: 2003. Then: "first ever starbucks" (1912, and she thinks okay, overkill much?). She puts her phone face down, but still holds onto it. Ponders and does the math in her head. And then, a pointed sip of her tasty coffee drink. ]
I guess you're right.
[ It doesn't pain her to say it, but it sure does complicate this imaginary scenario she wants him to act out!! After a beat, she elaborates: ]
The pumpkin spice latte wasn't invented until 2003.. You were definitely out of high school by then.
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(it didn't need to take a google search—.)
and then she tells him when the first pumpkin spice lattes came out and— )
Iraq, ( he says on auto-pilot, not really thinking about. his tone is blunt realisation, the kind of thoughtfulness that comes from knowing something's important, but when the mouth works faster than the brain and words form faster than recognition puts them together. if she'd said 2001 or 2002, he probably wouldn't have said anything, but 2003 had been the year he'd been discharged (kicked out).
(hmm.)
(moving on.)
he sips his own coffee, presses his lips together and tries again. ) I came back in 2003. ( briefly, anyway. it'd been the odd interim of his life, where there'd been a chance — fleeting — for him to reconcile with his family, and marc had pointedly decided no and he'd left (again). fighting — boxing — in underground rings because it was an easy source of money, because no-one asked questions and no-one really cared who he was other than how good he could throw and take a punch, and then he'd met jean-paul.
he has no way of making any of that — well, anything.
dryly, then, he opts to say: ) Big year.
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Oops?
Lottie can't tell if this calls for an 'oh', or an 'oops', so she tries both, because it's not like Marc presents this as a bad thing, something she should treat delicately.
He simply just β hands it off to her. Not exactly presented as a fun fact, like how she does sometimes, giving information about herself for free on a silver platter in the hopes of impressing somebody. In fact, it looks like he isn't even thinking about it, when he says 'Iraq', probably isn't with how quickly he says it. In the seconds that follow, where he sips his coffee and tries his hand at a proper sentence, she thinks: shit. That's right.
Lottie's aware of his history, of vague events that are more markers for her reference and nothing explicitly personal (like the minute details of it all, because whatever Marc gives, Lottie will always take). The information escapes her because she always makes sure to be loose with it. Loose, like in a way that she's aware of what he does as Moon Knight but expressly decides to not think about it because it'll hurt her head and make her think.
And nobody, not even herself, wants her thinking. ]
How was it?
[ Coming back, she means, after all of that. She figures not exciting, if Marc's last comment is anything to go by (she doesn't key in to the fact he might mean: wow, a historical year for the world, Marc Spector returning home and pumpkin spice latte's being born!) but β Lottie finds herself asking, anyway. Lets her nail thumb at the lid of her cup, scraping ever so lightly at it. ]
I mean, I already know there was no PSL's for you, but..
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the sound of her nail against the plastic of her coffee cup lid is loud and distracting, though lottie doesn't seem to notice. his eyebrows arch upwards and he lifts his shoulders in a shrug. he almost says that he did everything he could to get out of chicago and the subsequent thought of going back hadn't been a barrel of laughs. ordinarily, marc does anything and everything he can to avoid talking about chicago, only mentions his family when he has to, or when struck by (very infrequent) bouts of sentimentality, but lottie hasn't presented him with an immediate, obvious avenue for skipping past the topic.
(except for coffee, but he can't think of a way to use that to move the conversation on, either.) ) —Hot. ( iraq, he means, not chicago, and in lieu of being able to think of an actual answer to her question that doesn't involve a degree of honesty marc is more comfortable avoiding, he tells her— ) Dishonorable discharge. There wasn't exactly a grand welcome home waiting for me. ( he doesn't say that his departure hadn't exactly been a cause for celebration, either. it'd been argument and disagreement after argument and disagreement; three years of non-communication. he doesn't admit that he hadn't enlisted out of a genuine desire to serve country, but because it'd been a way to escape his life and do something he felt he was good at.
if marc had wanted it to, his return home could have meant something, but he'd been determined to continue the status quo. ) I left as soon as I could. Probably missed out on all sorts of cultural touch points.
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This time, it isn't hard for her to recall the context she needs for that β she remembers very clearly him talking about his family with her, right after he had made fun of her for subtly ("subtly") quoting Barney. Mostly because it's not often she talks about her family, Lottie refusing to even have let her closest circle know she even had siblings until she couldn't anymore (when Rosie bummed at her place for a few months during her almost-maybe divorce).
She figured that it's the same case for him, being cagey about details because it's easier to just ignore it. Because that's normal, right? So she listens, takes an appreciative sip of her coffee as she thinks, yeah, he did miss out on a lot. Lots of shows, lots of artists β 2003 was the year before she started high school, another year she was mousey, plain, wallflower Lottie Person. Quiet, soft, but terribly bitter. Maybe more than she is now, probably. She wonders how Marc was, at the time, if he was just a mini-Marc (sans the moon) or if he was entirely different.
And, god, she could think over that for what feels like hours, but she is very much still having a conversation. Very much is looking at Marc and thinking about how much he must've missed throughout his complicated life, thinking about her life in comparison. Sure, she could maybe pull up a list of everything iconic and amazing that's happened since then to, she doesn't know, make him feel included? But she doesn't. She stays off her phone and, tries to be nonchalant.
You know, casual. ]
I mean.. I started my blog in 2008.
[ Extremely casual. She brings her drink to her lips and raises her brows, trying not to toot her own horn because yes, she is totally implying her blog is a cultural touch point. And she is hoping he'll see it as a fun, silly, thing β a self aware jab at herself so Marc can.. She doesn't know? Take the out if he wants it? Laugh? ]
We can start there.
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(it doesn't help, of course, where his perception and understanding of, well, anything veers wildly from 'absolutely in keeping with reality' through to 'no, marc, that's just how you're perceiving it, the cops aren't actually jackals.')
she's quiet after he tells her he was dishonorably discharged and he doesn't know what that means to her (if it means anything at all). she's looking at him and he's not quite sure if she's trying to mentally map what he'd said out or whether she's just working out how to reply, so he takes a sip of his coffee and moves, finally, away from the desk.
(back to the window, and he leans forward, tilting his head. he still can't see the moon — too much glare from too many other lights, too much cloud cover, and they're on the ground floor — great for accessibility, less so for moon-watching. sometimes, he really misses spending time at his home in long island; the rest of the time, he remembers how empty it is, how large the space, and how suffocating the two make it feel.)
crucially, he can only see the reflection of lottie, dull and unclear, and he can't quite make out the shifts in her expression. she says she started her blog in 2008 and marc can't tell how she means it from her face, has to rely on how she says it: light and casual, and she raises her coffee cup as if to signify the poignancy (air quotes) of the event.
2008. he'd still been with bushman then, and jean-paul, though they were beginning to have questions, beginning to wonder about raul's brutality. jean-paul had always approached it — their work — with a matter-of-factness marc had never possessed, raul had never possessed. they'd all been in it for the money, but bushman had done it to feel power, to exert control and cause fear; marc had done it because it quietened something in him, because it had seemed to fill a hole he'd to-that-point found no other way of filling.
jean-paul had never wanted to work with bushman (bad news, he'd said, the worst of the worst), and marc had ignored him (think of the payday! he'd said, and jean-paul had gone along with it). marc has questioned, more than once, why it'd taken him so long to feel concerned by what raul did, and why jean-paul had stuck by the both of them for as long as he had, given who raul was.
(he knows the answer to that second question in a loose, vague way, though he still doesn't really understand why.)
lottie had been starting a blog — still at school, he realises, uncomfortably — whilst marc had been anywhere he could be that wasn't home, slowly discovering a conscience he'd desperately tried to ignore whilst still doing almost anything that was asked of him. the frown that pulls at his feature — his thoughtful frown, as opposed to his unhappy frown — precipitates a glance over his shoulder. he can see the edges of her shape in his periphery, but nothing more solid than that. )
Nice, ( softly, light amusement evident as his features relax. ) I missed that, too. Not much in the way of internet in the jungle. ( not that marc didn't spend time in civilisation, but the circles he'd run in hadn't placed 'casual computer use' anywhere near their list of 'fun and interesting ways to spend free time'. he's not sure he'd have really been confident in saying what a blog was back in 2008, even. )
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And in a way, she understands, so she lets him. Pretends like standing up to gaze at the window in the middle of a conversation is completely normal, a totally regular thing to do rather than face her properly. She angles herself towards said window, stares at his back β clad in black, not white. Stares at the way his hair curls and sticks out awkwardly from being stuffed inside a mask for the majority of the night. Her eyes are outlining the curve of his shoulder, remembering it's where his cape sat and trying to recall how it looked β how it might look, now, with the distance β when she sees his reflection shift. Lottie doesn't catch the detail of it (if she did, she'd feel pride at recognizing his different frowns), but she can at least guess she must've said something right for him to sound like that. For him to look like that.
..Not that she can really see much of it, with that barebones glance. She's assuming his expression is good, if he's letting her know this much: he was in the jungle in 2008.
Her brows furrow.
Huh.
He was in the jungle in 2008. And Lottie was, what, barely meeting Sunny and painting her nails at home because she was too intimidated to go to the nail salon? Being a baby blogger with big aspirations of being iconic and relatable? What the fuck?
The thing is for Lottie, she does define everything by years, by details. Because as a blogger, if nothing goes on in her life, she loses money. Relevancy, can't generate content and can't prove to companies how profitable she is. As a result, Lottie knows exactly when something happens, when she met someone, deep down knows exactly what outfit she wore too. She knows the exact year she saw her sister's face while perusing Netflix, and how angry she was seeing her gain all the fame she worked for (for years) in a matter of seconds (2015). Remembers the exact year she met Esther for the first time (2012). When she started her friendship with Misty (2011). The time she interviewed with NYLON JAPAN (2014). Her ten year blogiversary (2018). When Sunny broke up with her (2016), when she met Caroline (2016). ]
Yeah, [ She agrees, tone just as soft, after a beat. And because it is kinda funny (the lack of internet is totally why he didn't follow her in the jungle, obviously), she lets out a laugh. Something light, ] I mean, the signal probably sucked.
[ Sometimes she forgets just how different their lives have been, and it's easy for her to do it, because Lottie is so impossibly self obsessed that people outside of her field of view genuinely don't exist. Sure, Marc has made a definitive spot for himself in her world, but she only sees him as the Marc in front of her. Moon Knight, the guy in the suit and the guy in the cowl, Marc Spectorβ always with a little stubble on him and a bruise blossoming somewhere. Sometimes she sees it, sometimes she doesn't, and it always depends on his state of dress. Usually, when she pictures him, it's sans his mask and gloves. Teetering between Moon Knight and plain old Marc. She associates him with odd hours, coffee, being weird and curt. A little funny.
She never thinks of his history, just his day and how it relates to hers.
Now, she can add 'the jungle' to that. And it's odd, the information. Interesting? Odd. Lottie can't quite place it, but what she feels isn't bad, per se. In a way this is nice, him opening up to her. In another way, she's not sure what to do with the information. Arguably, he is saying so little, but he is implying so much. ]
I still have some old stuff up on my Instagram. [ AKA, he can still see it. Technically make up for that missed 'event'. There's a reason why she has some of the nicer photos of herself still up, after all. People love nostalgia (she loves nostalgia). ] And the stuff I deleted, got reposted. That's the thing about the internetβ nothing ever really goes away.
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khonshu never had spoken then, there'd never been any whispers in his ear, from the corners of rooms. marc had felt lost and none of that had changed when khonshu had made himself known — no, marc had somehow managed to lose himself even more, and the only times he'd sought the moon's shape out then had been between sleep and wakefulness, when frequent (night after night after night—) nightmares stirred him. ("I'd forgotten this part", marlene had said once, after one of their many reunions and waking to find marc stood silently at their bedroom window).
he doesn't ask anything these days — not for guidance, not for help — but for as challenging, as strained, as difficult as his relationship with khonshu is, the cool, silver glow of moonlight is comforting. he doesn't expect lottie to understand — and frankly, it's either this or fidgeting, a propensity for moving from furniture to floor and back again, swapping positions as if he'll find answers or whatever words he's looking for in movement rather than stillness.
(he only does it when his mind's stuck on something.)
he and lottie are talking like there isn't a chasm between their life experiences, like marc wasn't in the process of amassing more funds than he'd ever be able to spend in the shape of blood money in 2008, like lottie wasn't in the process of being a not quite regular teenager, but certainly one with more direction that marc had ever possessed before sudan. more ambition, more drive that didn't take the form of bruised knuckles and blood and guns. talking as if of course the only reason that marc hadn't known of her blog — weirdness of a man in his mid-to-late twenties following a much younger woman's fashion and (presumably) lifestyle blog aside — was lack of internet connection.
she mentions she has some old stuff up on instagram and marc knows what that is (steven has an account — marc thinks he's on most social media sites of a certain type — he'd said something about linkedin once, about marc's lack of interest in anything remotely practical not pertaining to moon knight meaning that all of his (steven's) hardworked for connections were going to absolute waste—.). marc's memories are locked tightly in boxes — physical ones — and stored in cupboards he refuses to look in until he's overwhelmed with the crushing awareness of who he is (was, has been, can't escape). they're in police reports, military reports, and newspaper cuttings. confidential files that, like lottie's deleted instagram posts will also never go away.
he's relieved to an extent that he's not sure he'd ever be able to describe to know that at least his past was never documented like that, but he doesn't quite know what to say. it's not that he feels like he has to be careful with what he says to lottie about his past, about what he's done and what he does, but that he's aware — acutely — that like reese, like soldier, she didn't know him then. that the marc spector that marc talks about in the third person, the one he barely bothers to disguise his loathing of, is one that isn't always easy to reconcile with who he tries to be here and now. it's a disconnect that feels overwrought until he slips up and backslides and it's — oh, right, of course. marc spector: unpredictable, unreliable, crazy, whoever expected anything else.
half to lottie, half to her reflection, he almost tells her that they don't just have the internet to thank for things never going away — it'd always seemed to marc that whatever a person wanted to bury, it always found a way of making itself known again. that it's not often that secrets or private shame gets carried to the grave.
but he doesn't. he makes a noise, a generic hum of consideration that doesn't really say one way or the other if he'd want to see lottie's instagram from a decade or more ago (weird thought). )
Everything sucked, ( he says instead. not just the signal, but the heat, the food (half the time), the company (almost all of the time — which is an exaggeration he won't admit to, because he'd found a way to tolerate bushman then, and as raul had grown worse, marc had started to grow better, the in-betweens papered over with mediocre jobs, days and nights spent in shitty towns with shitty booze). ) —Especially the bugs. You'd hate it.
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Normal bugs she despises. Any type of insect or creepy crawly, anything that can get into her skin or under her clothes she can't handle. It pleases her in a way for her to know that he's caught onto her well enough to figure that out himself. But now she has to put two and two together. The first two being: the jungle, and the second being: the bugs. And, god, she thinks Marc must've really hated being at home to voluntarily choose that over modern day comforts. Where did he even sleep, then? The ground? Ew.
(Maybe that's where his penchant for hardly sleeping and staying up absurdly late came from? Lottie tries to connect dots, bits and pieces of him that she knows to give a reason for something she's already accepted as just being a fun and quirky Marc thing (like her codependence on her fans for validation, or her caffeine addiction! It's fun and quirky!).) ]
Oh, yeah, god, of course I'd hate it. I barely even like the weather in New York!
[ Which is to say: as a person who is allergic to everything, and whose ability to go outside is entirely based on the season.. She hates any kind of weather. Hated it in Los Angeles, hates it virtually anywhere she goes, even if the place is nice. She hates any shift, any change, because it always affects her somehow. Dry air? Massive humidity? Nosebleeds. Windy? Pollen in the air? Sneezing, headaches, inability to stop crying and being gross, her skin gets red. Fur? Animals? A day without her hand sanitizer? Allergy attack. ]
And I really don't like the bugs here. [ She scoffs to herself, ] Knowing my ass I'd probably get bit and die from some rando disease nobody has heard of.
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steven had never elaborated on anything more than what marc had ever elaborated on: marc was a bad man, had a terrible personality, reckless and violent; steven was his opposite, capable of appreciating the finer things in life, and neither of them had wanted to clarify that it wasn't as simple as all that.
and truthfully, marc isn't much better now. yes, he's a lot more at ease — in a very general sense — with who he and steven and jake are, but it's not something he ever discusses unless he has to. lottie doesn't ask questions, not really — she asks questions about marc now, asks things of marc, but it's all kept pointedly separate, as if there are barriers she's thoroughly uninterested in crossing and for the most part, it works. lottie allows marc to pretend like his life isn't absurd and weird, and as if none of it's entirely of his own making.
she latches on to the mention of bugs like there's nothing bizarre about any of their conversation, like they're discussing a trip to the middle of nowhere a couple of states away instead of marc participating in unspeakable atrocities countries and oceans away.
for his part, he doesn't really know what lottie's deal is exactly — he's noticed she's particular about the weather, particular about when she goes outside, about where she goes. (he's been tempted, on occasion, to simply put it down to 'weird superstitions, possibly completely fictitious'.) he's noticed, too, that she's particular about her food — but who isn't these days? and has never quiet decided if it's dietary requirements or just some kind of diet she follows.
and because she's never really delved too deep into his story, he's repaid her in kind and never made a point of asking much more than she's been willing to share of her own accord.
she says she barely likes the weather in new york and marc's lips twitch as if he wants to say something. he gets partway through thinking about asking if there's much she actually likes and thinks the better of it, letting her continue. compared to chicago, there's more sun in new york, is generally less cold and of everywhere that's marc been and spent time, is probably the closest he can think of in terms of being pleasant year round — meaning her scoff earns a sharp exhale of breath that's not quite a scoff of his own, but does nothing to imply he disagrees with lottie's assertion. )
No-one would get you close enough to the jungle for that to happen.
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Which is, to be fair, how a lot of her trips turn out even in more metropolitan places. Places like New York, places that come down to: how many buildings can we fit in one block. How many bougie bars and pop ups can we squeeze in one street with no public parking?
And she has to stop the concept right there, because then she's circling back to the reason why the jungle was even mentioned. Is reminded of things she's pointedly avoiding asking since she can't relate, can't offer any sort of insightful commentary to Marc's life. In some way doesn't care, either, because that's just how Lottie is with comfort and being 'kind' and 'compassionate' β it's difficult if she can't find a reason to find something.. Normal? Genuine? To say? Sure, she can curate responses online to sound congenial, but she can't do it, real time, in person. She thinks if she did (be fake) Marc would know, anyhow β they may not know everything about each other, but they've been orbiting in each other's spaces enough to know their quirks.
(Besides, now that she knows they're okay and moving past their most recent spat β AKA, not contacting each other for a few days, arguably something that can be normal and fine for anyone if not for the way they had left things β there's little reason for her to care. Why ruin a good thing? Something something don't fix what isn't broken?) ]
They'd have to drag me kicking and screaming.
[ Obviously, her tone implies. Which, really, she doesn't even need to do β they both know how picky she is. She slides out of her chair, stretches her limbs out as she wanders over to linger beside him. Mostly because she knows if she leans back on his chair to stand he might be upset, and she doesn't want that. So she decides to gently ease her weight onto the wall right beside the window, angles herself so she'll face him. ]
I'm more of a trip to Paris kind of girl, anyway.
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Ugh. ( it's said without him really thinking about it, just an instinctive utterance of thought and feeling: he hates paris. yes, there are nice restaurants and the pastries are good, but the same can be said for almost anywhere in france. the only — only — thing he thinks paris has going for it is the pervasive lack of interest parisians have in anyone else at all. parisians, frenchie had explained, hate everyone and marc, actually, had been fine with that.
curiously, then, he asks— ) Have you ever been to Paris? ( he thinks it could go either way — yes and she'd avoided the scummier, scuzzier parts of the city, pointedly ignore the pervading stench of piss down streets (both side streets and otherwise) and, bizarrely, at almost every metro station except charles de gaulle.
or the answer's no and she'd just like to go, imagines it be a magical place of whatever it is that people actually want to go to paris for. )
It's a dump, ( he adds, a little quieter and partially to himself. a civilised dump, he supposes, a shithole in ways that was entirely different to the pits and dregs of morality and humanity he'd ended up during most of his travels, but not one he was inclined to like regardless.
(nice galleries, though.) )
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A couple times.
[ She says, after a moment, subtly thrilled that she actually has something in common with Marc that isn't the coffee places they go to whenever it's late, or the odd hours they keep. So, he's been to Paris. And he absolutely fucking hates it, which arguably is funny enough all considering what he puts himself through on the daily. Paris is his breaking point, somehow. It's a dump, he insists. ]
Fashion week is kind of a big thing for us influencers. [ She explains, in case he was wondering if she was ever visiting for work or for play. And it is always for work, always to network and put herself out there. She shrugs a single shoulder. ] I'm still not that plugged into New York's.
[ She says just as quiet as he did, an admission of the real reason why she even moved to New York. There's no "fashion weeks" in Los Angeles, only movie premieres and photo ops. The real opportunities are in locations like this, like New York, or Paris, or London, Milan, even. There's hardly any time to sight see, when she's too busy preparing looks, pieces, practicing what angles she looks best at in the hotel room mirror. ]
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his gaze stays settled on lottie for several moments. he notes that whilst she said that compared to ending up in a jungle, she'd prefer paris (obviously), she didn't actually say if she liked the city or if she just liked what it provided her with. marc imagines it's the latter, can't quite marry the thought of the lottie he knows enjoying the paris he's familiar with — and they're similar in the way that though neither have said it, marc doesn't travel for pleasure, either. he's done enough of it for unpleasant reasons throughout his life, been to enough places and met the worst sorts of people that he knows he wouldn't know what to do on vacation.
marlene had tried — routinely, pointedly — sometimes telling marc (steven) her plans, sometimes surprising him. on each and every occasion, marc (not steven) would bury his moon knight clothing and easily carryable equipment at the bottom of a bag or a suitcase, and he'd find — inevitably — a way to keep himself busy, whilst steven and marlene and even frenchie would try to posit that, actually, relaxing isn't such a bad thing.
he doesn't have anything to say about fashion week, no placations to offer about lottie not being as involved in new york's fashion — bubble? as she'd like to be. )
Israel's nice, ( he offers instead. it's a sharp pivot from what he'd been talking about before, the closest he's got to pleasant memories. his father had friends there and though marc had never been good at keeping in touch, he'd visited on the infrequent occasions he ended up in the country. ) Nice weather, good food. ( it has its difficulties, he doesn't say, because everywhere has its problems. it's not a reflection of its people. ) I don't know much about the fashion scene, though.
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But Marc isn't like everyone else. In fact, he's so unlike everyone else that it's refreshing, makes her feel a little less weird about how truly feral she can get sometimes in the privacy of her own home.
Oh, but her thoughts cut short. Ease away into their silence because Marc is staring at her. For an absurdly long time. She wonders if he's even aware of what he's doing, for how long he's doing it, with the way Lottie starts to squirm and shift under his gaze. Feels her cheeks run pink because whatβ is something in her teeth? On her face? What is he thinking? Should she say something? Explain it a little more? Does Marc.. Is he wanting to know what she does?? Her lips part, more of an exhale, really, ]
Uhβ
[ Israel's nice, he says, abruptly out of nowhere (it feels abrupt to her because she's been hyperfocusing on herself, just how he's been focusing on staring and thinking at her). But she'll take itβ closes her lips as he continues and she finally sees where he's going. What Marc offers, arguably, isn't a lot, but it's still nice to hear from him. To know that there's one place somewhere in his memory that he happens to enjoy, not for any reason like crime fighting but for good food and nice weather. She's never been to Israel β has only been where work has taken her and where her family has forced her to go (Japan, to visit her mom's side of the family, and Sweden, to visit her father's).
There's a soft, curious, quirk to her lips when he's finished. And even though she knows what he means, she still asks him: ] Fashion scene in Israel? Or fashion scene in general?
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he's been, once or twice, but more often to jerusalem. he shoots her a sidelong glance, watchful and appraising as he weighs up what he knows about lottie (odd facts and inferences based on time spent together where they don't really talk about anything, a companionable kind of non-communication that marc doesn't hate) versus what he knows about tel aviv: architecture lottie wouldn't necessarily care for but for the photograph opportunities. markets she'd enjoy for much the same reason and would be strangely careful about eating anything from (marc's never quite been sure what her deal is — he's noticed she avoid gluten, noticed she always opts for a non-dairy milk, and he's never quite been sure if it's because alternative diets are cool these days or if it's because she genuinely suffers from a host of intolerances).
his lips quirk and he hides the barest hint of a smile behind his coffee cup as he adds, ) It's where the kids hang out. ( is it?
marc is not always as ignorant as he plays at. he knows, vaguely, what an influencer is and does, but he's never cared to discover the minutiae, never felt particularly inclined to discover what about it specifically is employable and what it means in a broad, day-to-day sense. lottie spends a lot of time on her phone (fine, people do that generally anyway, people that aren't marc), she spends a lot of time on her laptop (also fine, that's how a lot of people do jobs generally), but the details of marketing oneself and one's life is a tedious and horrifying concept to marc given his deep-rooted desire to be personally invisible.
(moon knight's different).
he has never cared for fashion, not as a kid, not as a teenager, and certainly not as an adult. lottie's shared her appreciation for his suit — it is nice, even if most people get fixated on the 'but it's white!' aspect — but nothing else. steven cares the most, is fussy and particular in a way that neither marc nor jake can relate to, though jake is particular about his own sense of style in his own, jake-like way.
marc dresses for dull practicality. ) So at a guess, with my limited knowledge, that's probably where you want to go to get your fashion fix.
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So she tries to think of it differently, that he's aging himself instead of aging her, and it only manages to lessen the weird swirl of feelings settling in her chest. Arguably, is that even better? Reminding herself Marc is older than her and a dad (she will, truly, never get over this β Marc screams bachelor having an always-crisis and not a dad!)? She lets her gaze sweep over him, wonders if this is what she gets for asking when she already knew what he meant, if this is some weird sort of karma being inflicted on her.
Really, she knows Marc wouldn't purposely inflict her with this, if he knew how deep her insecurities ran. How unsure of herself she really felt, how deep the roots go into her brain. She tries to run off this, lets herself fiddle with the straw in her drink when he announces that's where she'd get her 'fashion fix'. He is thinking about her, ultimately, and she should be satisfied with that, and yetβ. ]
Tel Aviv.. [ She repeats, after a second of dedicated thought (read: giving a slow nod and humming), sounding out the name on her tongue. Marc is mentioning it, so that means it must be worthwhile. Also, Marc mentioned it, so she has to go at some point. ] ..Okay. I'll have Esther pencil that in for me.
[ Her phone is out of reach, having been placed on his desk before she came to lean beside him, so she'll make a note to text her about it. Secretly, she hopes she'll actually remember, because she wants to let it be known to Marc that she pays attention to what he says. That she remembers, is putting an active effort into what they have, because isn't that what friendship is? She tilts her head until the crown of it rests softly against the wall. Her tone is curious, bordering on even, when she asks. ]
Would you wanna go?
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marlene would comment, unhappily, on how much time was being spent on moon knight and not enough time on their relationship, and so marc — or steven, or jake — would impulsively book a holiday, not quite anywhere they last remembered marlene mentioning, but somewhere that'd seem like marc (or steven, or jake—) was listening to marlene, reflecting on what she'd said, giving her (them) a vacation together, but then it'd inevitably be somewhere with a link to marc's past (always marc's, because marc is the only one of them with a past worth escaping) and marlene would — well, she'd be unhappy, of course.
he's done it with greer, too — arguments and fraught conversations resulting in considered but frankly spur of the moment gifts in lieu of a good apology (marc has never been good at those). with frenchie, it'd been impulsive invitations, a resolute ignoring of issues as to say 'look, water under the bridge, look, let's do this, just like the old days'.
lottie says she'll pencil tel aviv in and he's — startled. surprised, though not unpleasantly. it's world's apart from the start of their conversation, the difficulty in clarity, in being open and honest with each other. it's a strange sensation to realise it's a maybe decision made off the back of marc's frankly poor knowledge of what's fun and exciting to do in israel, and though it's not unpleasant, it's not a situation marc has found him in often with friends — marc hasn't many, for one, and for two, he's often the one making decisions and leaving little room for opinion.
generally, it makes its way back to him in the form of 'god, you make this really difficult, marc'. )
I haven't been abroad in a while, ( he admits carefully, a not-quite answer to her question. that's the second surprise, the implied invitation, and he thinks of all the times he'd travelled with marlene. he doesn't think he needs to tell lottie that he's not the most involved person to travel with.
(that is, he doesn't think he needs to mention it, but he probably should.)
he doesn't think he's travelled since — since marlene before left for france. he wonders if anna's still living in jerusalem, if any of his father's friends are still there. it's not a long journey from tel aviv — an hour and a half, maybe. he'd have to ask badr to look after the mission. ) —I don't know how much of a valuable addition I'd be to your Instagram.
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But truthfully, she's never considered Marc to travel for fun β he's too busy doing his Moon Knight stuff here, has sunken his roots into the soil so deep she doesn't think he'd ever leave if given the chance. Plus, it'd be hard finding a replacement if he wanted to take time for himself, probably.. Not a lot of people willing to moonlight (hah) as Moon Knight (hah) for a week or so while Marc gets his tan on.
She doesn't even get as far as imagining just what type of person he'd even be on a trip (she'd start with what white themed ensemble he'd shove himself into first before fantasizing about anything related to group activities) before he continues. And it's minute β tiny, so little it's a real blink and you miss it β the way her lips tug down. She knows he doesn't mean anything by it, whether he'd be valuable to her Instagram, her brand, or not, but it makes her stomach twist oddly.
It's something everyone assumes of her, of most influencers, and they're not wrong. Lottie, genuinely, only goes somewhere if she can curate content from it. She never goes out for fun, only goes out into the world with the intent of finding the spot with the best lighting. Because who doesn't love a selfie as a story update, you know? But she doesn't do much of that whenever they're together β she thought he'd understand that? It'd also be the same? Is that what he thinks of her? Idly, she bites at her lip, glances off to the side as her expression settles on: self-conscious.
It's only vaguely defensive, the way her words sound out of her lips. ]
..I don't post everything to Instagram.
[ She wouldn't post him if he doesn't want her to, she means. ]
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marc's unpopularity aside, his poor reputation and past reliance on questionable methods to get the job done is ultimately inconsequential. he knows he's fucked up, he knows it's going to take a while to pull back whatever goodwill he might have fostered over the years (here and there, back and forth between other bad decisions), but he knows too, that if anyone had any problems with what he was doing now, he'd have heard about it.
he'd have another visitor at his door and it wouldn't be a friendly face like greer. it'd be t'challa, or captain america, or goddamn tony stark (again), and marc's tired of those visits. bored of the repetitive conversations. the black panther had given him an olive branch that he's only sort of accepted in the form of tigra, but the lack of anything else says that what marc's doing now is acceptable to the rest of them.
clea owes him a favour (well, not really, but they're friends). wong doesn't quite owe him a favour, but wong's a good guy (although marc's aware he should probably stop pissing off the various sorcerer supremes of the world). daredevil (and there's a guy who's had a few problems of his own). spider-man (ditto). castle's busy having a personal crisis of his own and despite how many times they've teamed up over the years, marc doesn't think he has it in him to ever go to him for help. (khonshu and his "oh, that one works for another god and his god must be very pleased", like marc hasn't done enough for him over the years, the fucking dick.) but he thinks he could probably even scare 8-ball enough to keep an eye out for him.
so no, finding someone else to keep an eye on his territory wouldn't be the issue. the issue would absolutely be marc giving up control of it all for long enough.
that is: possible, but challenging.
he doesn't catch the shift in lottie's expression, but he does catch the glance to the side, does notice the difference in the way she answers him now to mere moments before and he doesn't know what he's said. instagram? her—problem is his comment about instagram? )
I didn't—. ( abrupt pause; reconsideration. if she elaborated a little more on what she meant, precisely, marc would explain that he didn't mean it like that. he'd meant that their values are different. he meant he's not fun and doesn't do fun things, isn't someone many people have historically made fun memories with. that, objectively, there must have been something that'd kept marlene around for as long as she was but now, marc's not really sure what it was. ) That's not what I meant.
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He says that's not what he meant, after a beat, and the good thing is she doesn't immediately hop into what is instinctual for her when she's feeling insecure: bitter denial. She's quiet, but it's not because she doesn't believe him. It's because she still wants to try and communicate without letting slip too much of her thoughts, because she's not sure how her words will sound coming out of her lips. ]
Okay..
[ So if he doesn't think she's a crazy clout goblin, then.. ]
So what did you mean?
[ She asks, tone curious and vaguely guarded, like she's preparing herself for an answer she might not like. ]
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marc's constantly caught between caring too much about what people think of him and deciding what does it matter to ever give a thought to his opinion on someone else mattering. that'd been the problem with jeff: marc had never had an ounce of time for the boy, left him stranded in brooklyn, and was more or less the reason he became a villain.
(and then marc had killed him. fortunately, lottie is not jeff.)
true to form, though, he doesn't think (again) of how lottie interprets his actions and his comments. he inhales, makes a small gesture with his hand that doesn't mean anything (is instead simply something to do), and says— )
I meant— ( and immediately pauses. how does he say what he meant? his comment was a commentary on her instagramming, it was a commentary on himself—! ) I'm not very present.
( that's it, right? that's about the shape of it. )
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abrupt, weird, and mopey: the name of marc's autobiography
his best selling book to date (his only book To Date)
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