( her stare is accusatory, angry. she's silent and then—
—she shuts the door on him.
he stands there for a moment longer, mouth parted in deep surprise at her reaction. something (someone) at the back of his mind says 'well done', and he presses his hand against the bridge of his nose. well fucking done indeed. he's not sure what he's done to upset her more than she already was, but apparently, he's done it.
he gives her five minutes before padding back towards his bedroom, five minutes before he strips out of the cape, the cowl, the mask, the boots, all of it. it's dumped unceremoniously in a pile in the corner of the bathroom before he showers, years of practise and use meaning the shower's turned on quickly, meaning he showers quickly. takes long enough to become clean, for the water to stop running down the drain tinged with pink.
like lottie, marc's body is adorned with bruises and cuts though his are entirely the result of his own actions and not all from tonight. his are the result of willingness, of choice, of a decision made of his own free will. he doesn't cry about his, never has and never will. they're testaments to how he feels about himself, about what he needs to do to silence the guilt and the loathing that feels like it takes up his entire soul.
they're deserved.
he dresses in his clothes — spector's — a plain, loose-fit t-shirt tucked into an equally plain pair of trousers. he doesn't stay in the bedroom — he heads towards the guest room, pauses outside, and then reaches the conclusion that he's a fucking idiot, and heads back to his room.
it's an unpleasant feeling, the sensation that something's not right and he doesn't know what to move or how to get the pieces to fall into place. he hates it, hates the way that the night's gone, and he's antsy. he knows that if lottie wasn't here, he wouldn't be either, he'd find somewhere else to be, someone — anyone — to take his feelings out on, anything to take the uncomfortable edge off.
it feels like it's caught in chest, in his head, and—
then there's a noise. faint. questioning. a little plaintive.
back to the guest room and the door's open and his breath catches and—
it's lottie, her green hair wet and slick and visible, even through the crack in the door.
[ He calls her own name in turn andβ she pauses. Suddenly a little more aware of the fact she is in a towel and maybe she should've worn the pants, but it's too late now. And Marc looksβ like himself. And, unlike himself, he's in plainclothes, and not his suit. It's nice, it makes the pause turn a little more weighty when she can finally see his eyes. Can finally make out his expression that isn't hidden by a mask. Has more to go on than his voice, the way he touches her.
She has all those things and yet, she doesn't use them. Just.. Stays quiet for another moment, feeling spectacularly embarrassed for no reason at all.
(It's because she can't fit in the shirt, it is definitely because of that.)
She clears her throat nervously, glances down to the ground as she tries to not let the way her hair drips over her skin bug her. Tries to not let the fact she's making a mess on the floor, bug her. ]
..Um, is it okay if I can wear one of your shirts?
( she doesn't answer straight away. if marc wasn't able to see her — some of her, anyway — he'd have pushed into the room to check on her. to make sure she was okay. she's — not okay, but nothing else is wrong, nothing else has happened.
he can see that she's dressed only in a towel and, the longer the silence lasts, the more marc slowly pieces together what she's about to ask. he'd been wrong. marlene's clothes don't fit her.
(is that why she's awkward? embarrassed in a way that marc doesn't often see from her?)
he opens his mouth to speak just as lottie coughs and looks down and away from him. it's not quite a slice of normality because there's nothing normal about any of this for either of them, but it's almost laughably mundane given the events of the night. )
—Yeah, sure.
( like he'd say 'no'? the answer is given immediately, almost before she's finished asking, and it's only a few moments before he returns with something of his in hand, held out towards her. it's given with a— )Sorry, ( said to break the silence that feels palpable. there's a brief, sharp moment where marc wonders if she's going to slam the door in his face (again), and he shifts his weight to push a foot forward, enough to stop the door closing entirely if she decides to just for long enough to ask— )
[ It is laughably mundane, and maybe some part of Lottie would be amused by this all if she weren't so viscerally aware of her body in the opposite way she usually doesβ she is not appraising and preening herself for photos but being forced to remember that some things stretch weirdly over her if she isn't careful with sizing and, if she's really negligent, could be downright uncomfortable across her breasts. And it's nice when, before she can even finish saying anything, Marc is already going back into his room and retrieving a shirt for her. Without even an explanation required.
He apologizes and β Lottie just takes the shirt, odd and quiet because she was going to say that, but now she can't because he said it first so she opts for a weird, ] It's okay.. [ Because it isn't really his fault..? Men, historically (to her), have never managed to get sizing right. All of two times did Sunny buy her a dress and a pair of pants that fit, so her expectations have always been spectacularly low.
She lingers by the door, having truly no idea what else she could say but not wanting to leave just yet either. But there's the issue of the fact she's still wet, still dripping, her wet hair clinging uncomfortably to her skin in a way that makes it crawl. She'd like to be dressed before she gets sick on top of this butβ she doesn't move. Marc does, actually, closing the distance in the thick silence that overtakes them.
(In the moment he does slyly slip that foot between her door, she actually was about to close it. She can't change with an open door β especially with no clean underwear. It's a problem that Esther has admonished her before about, something something "You can't keep kicking me out every time you need an outfit change!") ]
Uh.. [ Marc asks if, of all things, she wants a drink, and.. She clings his shirt a little to her chest, not out of anger or apprehension. She's just a littleβ surprised? ] Uh, yeah, if that's alright?
Coffee? Tea? ( water? something else? the question hangs in the air between them, even as marc slides his foot back, away from the door. it's something to busy himself with in the time it takes for her to get dressed, something for him to give himself the pretence of being occupied with instead of just sitting with his own thoughts.
it won't actually change anything — whatever she opts for, whatever marc takes the time to make, they both know it won't take as long as her making sure she's something approaching presentable, even when it's just the two of them, even when it's a pair of (old) sweatpants and one of marc's t-shirts. )
The kitchen's downstairs and to your left, ( he tells her, gaze shifting pointedly away. as if he can see through the floor to where he's talking about. the kitchen — like the rest of the house — is clearly made for more than two occupants of the house, is made for a family. it's disused, sparse in a way that speaks of its sole (infrequent) occupant leaning into practicality over anything else — coffee, first and foremost, and then food — leftover takeout, no real ingredients to speak of. ) I'll wait down there for you.
( a breath of a pause punctuated by something akin to realisation and a quick, searching glance of lottie's face. ) Unless you want me to bring it back up.
[ Lottie was moreso hoping Marc would just make a decision for herβ that he'd bring something or another back up and that'd be it. So she's glad to see at least one of her assumptions ringing true, when he stares at her a little too much when he offers to come deliver her drink, instead.
She leans back, unsure of what he's searching for and almost too scared to ask (because what is he seeing that she isn't? What kind of Lottie is she showing him, without even realizing it?). She palms at the shirt in her hand, glancing somewhere up and off to the side because his eyes areβ for once, they're a little too intense. Too earnest. She vaguely wishes for the buffer of his mask because eye contact is hard, for some reason. She shuffles her weight from foot to foot, tugging the towel around her tighter. ]
Coffee? You can bring it back up to me..
[ There's a beat, where she opens her lips but has to physically stop herself from adding 'if that's okay'. She knows it is, she really does, but it's hard not to add it when she feels so much like a burden in so little time. She finally meets his gaze again, reaching up to wipe some water off her face. ]
( she opts for coffee which means marc will have coffee, too. he'll wait until she's asleep and then he'll break open something stronger, something to ease his thoughts, to distract him, to unfocus him. to lessen the guilt and the knowledge that this is his fault, lottie stood in the guest room (frenchie's room) of grant manor, marc's t-shirt clutched to her chest. bruises not fully formed blooming across her face, her arms.
she looks away from him, unable to meet his gaze, and marc thinks that this is it, the moment where she puts two and two together. where she realises that moon knight is marc spector is danger is a problem, and she decides that she doesn't want anything more to do with him. that there's a reason why marc doesn't have anyone in his life, why marlene had moved away with diatrice, why jean-paul had said enough was enough — jean-paul! the very man that'd pulled marc into bushman's orbit, into a (very successful) mercenary life. jean-paul, of all fucking people, had decided that marc was too much, and if he couldn't stand marc spector, then why would lottie person be able to? she doesn't deserve any of this—.
he inhales and runs a hand through his still damp hair, curling softly at the ends in a way that marc usually hides with either his mask or determined combing up and back. her usual, she says, and marc thinks he'll give it his best shot but the only coffee he usually makes is black, accompanied infrequently by a dash of milk and a couple of teaspoons of sugar.
[ She hasn't hit that realization quite yet β she won't hit it for quite some time and she won't hit it in the way he suspects.
She'll think of it as an unfortunate one off, a terrible incident that neither of them could've seen coming. She'll think of it as an unfortunate one off because it will not happen againβ and whether she distances herself from Marc for a little is still left in the air, still unclear. Just like how she did to Caroline when she pushed somebody off a building and almost billed Lottie as an accessory (and she almost didn't even talk to her again after that, only being convinced by the visit of Virgil that sheneeds her).
Now, she is still in a hard to navigate maze of emotions, of thoughts. Some middling on simple and the other middling on so complicated she wants to just numb her brain out. He inhales and runs a hand through his drying hair and sheβ stands there. Watches the way his hair bounces and looks when it isn't covered by sweat and his mask.
She pauses for all of two seconds before hitting him with: ]
βTea. [ Whatever blend he has, she means. ] Hot is okay.
(tea. that's — fine. he can manage tea, he thinks. it's the sort of caffeinated drink he'd had first in the marines as a last resort, something less precious than coffee but served the same purpose; then, in the middle east and around, a drink that proved itself to be more versatile than marc had ever imagined. tea was not ever his first choice, but he's always kept teabags on hand, somewhere at the back of a cupboard, just in case.
marc spector, who'd grown up poor, not quite steven grant, who was used — entirely — to a life of luxury, to loose-leaf tea and to a certain degree of standards.
tea, she says, and marc's expression shifts only slightly in acknowledgement, his foot sliding back and away from the door in acceptance. finally, he's willing to allow lottie the privacy she requires to change into his t-shirt and marlene's pants whilst he busies himself with making coffee and tea, busies himself with anything that's not his thoughts, because he knows if he allows that to happen, he won't be quite himself. won't be the marc that lottie knows, is familiar with.
it's fifteen minutes later, then, that marc returns to the room with one cup of black coffee in one hand, and one cup of tea in the other. neither are especially good but they're serviceable, and marc finds himself wishing with more earnestness than he'd have expected of himself, for nedda. she'd have known the meal to make to set the world to rights (or close to it), she'd have known the tea to brew to set lottie's nerves at ease, the dinner to make.
this is the sort of scenario where a mirror is held up to marc spector and he's found wanting.
he taps the door with his foot in lieu of having any free hands, and waits for lottie to re-emerge. when she does, when she holds open the door, he'll hold the cup in his right (dominant) hand out to her, the cup of earl grey minus milk, minus sugar. )
[ In the fifteen minutes it takes for Marc to busy himself downstairs in the kitchen, making her drink, she's officially closed the door and toweled her body dry. Has slipped the old pair of sweats over her legs (for a second she was worried if her ass would fit but, thank god) and then slides Marc's shirt over her torso. It's loose, big, and the important part is she can breathe and function like a normal person inside it. She wraps her hair up in the towel, then, lets it sit on top of her head so nothing else gets wet.
And with no makeup, with no skincare in sight other than some lotion, Lottie is.. Done.
She is done getting ready and lookingβ well, she has no idea what she looks like and she wants it to stay that way, quite frankly. The less she knows, the better. The less fretting, the less panicking, the less crying. So she sits on her bed for the night and waits for something to do.
(Or: waits for Marc to return, so she'll have less of an excuse to be in her head.)
The tap tap tap makes her jolt, makes her tense and the why, she can't explain. But when she reminds herself she is at Marc's gigantic empty ass mansion, that it's just Marc, and that she can turn the lights on instead of sitting in the dark like a weirdo, she gets up. Opens the door slowly and sees a Marc with cups in both hands. Marc will see a Lottie who's looking better than worse, who is swimming in the plainly colored top. The sleeves are long enough to cover her hands (her wrists, is the important thing) and she's far more cozy, domestic adjacent, like this, looking vaguely bewildered at his appearance, like she forgot he'd be coming back. She takes the one offered: the tea. It's nice and warm in her hands and the steam, if she positions it just right, makes her nose feel less stuffy.
She doesn't drink it, however β in a way she doesn't need to, to figure the taste, she knows there's no milk, no sugar (Marc doesn't seem like the person to have those things at the ready normally, but especially not here, in a manor he's never told her about). Lottie simply palms it, switches hands when the heat begins to become uncomfortable on her skin. ]
..Thanks.
[ She says, and that should be the end of that, quite frankly, but.. It isn't. Lottie awkwardly lingers at her door, using herself as a stopper (no foot is required this time, Marc). And even she can't pinpoint the reason whyβ is it because after this, she thinks she'll be alone? That he'll go back to the Mission for the night and leave her? With no phone or anything? Is it because she's not sure if she should sleep, if she can? Does she want him here?
She uses a free hand to gesture down to her own cup, speaks into the silenceβ ]
( she stays stood in the doorway, doesn't push the door open any further to invite him in, doesn't retreat away herself and leave the door to shut, him still on the outside. it's awkward, a weird little metaphor for where they are right now — marc having done this nearly nightly for over ten years, his knuckles bruised and grazed, more bruises still travelling up his arms, his ribs. to lottie, this is new, it's more than uncomfortable, and she doesn't know if she wants to let more of marc in or shut him out completely.
he looks less awkward and more guilty, concern etched in the frown pinching his eyebrows together, the steady gaze fixed on lottie. it's not an expression seen often, but it's one that marc wears often beneath his mask, at nighttime, whenever he spends too long by himself thinking.
thanks, she says, and he doesn't say anything. he drinks a mouthful of coffee instead, grimacing slightly at the heat but god, it's good to drink something. he's tired. (how long has he been awake? he doesn't know.) then she says the tea looks good and he makes a noise, an exhale of breath through his nose that's part amusement, part scoff, because it doesn't. it's just tea.
grant drinks tea on occasion, loose leaf stuff that marc doesn't have the patience for. marc learnt to make tea in the marines, stationed alongside british soldiers in the middle east. a teabag dumped in a mug, hot water added, then milk. ('never trust a man that puts milk in his tea before the water, spector—'.) it's nothing fancy, nothing special. )
You don't have to just stand in the doorway, Lottie. ( to get to the point. ) You should rest, ( he adds and means 'you should try and get some sleep', but he knows that needing sleep and being able to sleep are two very different things. ) If you don't want to stay up here, there's the lounge. TV. The library.
[ In the most absurd of ways, it doesn't occur to Lottie to invite him in. A simple solution that bypasses her entirely. He takes a measured sip of what she assumes is flaming hot coffee and she winces for him. Winces despite the fact she's doing the same thing with her tea because now she's feeling like she's done something wrong and it upsets her in all the wrong ways. What he says next, upsets her, too.
He says she should do these things, she should rest. If she doesn't want to stay up here, she can go elsewhere. It's a reasonable assumption, from all she's given him, from all she's been through, that she might not want him there. Would want to be alone. Lottie knows this, desperately knows she's not being easy to read or reasonable and who would want to hang out with someone like that? She spaces out, deep in the trenches of her mind that her grip on her tea almost goes slack.
It's, really, the fact he's so ready to take that decision away from her makes her, she doesn't know, sad? Frustrated? Lottie stares at him with an unreadable expression, the only tinge of real emotion edging on is: hurt. Then: understanding. Something like resignation settling deep in her bones because she is tired. Tired of thinking, of being so angry.
But she doesn't want to sleepβ probably can't, with the way she's been existing since he picked her up. Her tongue burns from the tea, and her mouth feels like cotton, standing still in her doorway, feeling the walls close in around her.
And thenβ she swings the door open wider, clenches her jaw in a bout of hesitation, worry, ]
Can Iβ [ She swallows. ] can I listen to some of your music?
( it feels like it takes a long time for lottie to respond, her expression at first distant and blank, and then hurt. tired. hesitant. marc thinks that this was a mistake, that he should've done the same for lottie as he'd done for reese, taken her to andrea, someone more qualified to deal with everything. someone more qualified to talk and to help and to comfort.
that he shouldn't have brought her here, to grant manor. that it'd been a selfish decision, the sort that marc's good at making, where he decides he knows the best course of action and will take precisely zero input on the matter.
then she speaks and it's the last thing he expects to come out of lottie's mouth, a request to listen to music. his music. music that he doesn't even listen to all that often, only infrequently when he's feeling self-indulgent, when he needs some kind of noise as a distraction which is not often. he's never really been into music — sort of, here and there, as a kid and a teenager, and then there'd been other priorities. listening to the radio or keeping up with what was cool had never been something he'd done.
it's an out of the blue request that has marc's eyebrows arching and his gaze sliding from lottie to the inside of (frenchie's) room, to the sparse decor that marc hadn't bothered to replace once frenchie, like marlene, moved out. there's nothing in there for her (them?) to play music on, and it's his turn to look hesitant, doubtful, not out of a desire to say no, but because he's not sure how to say yes. )
Here? Or—. ( a loose wave, a gesture — vague — at the rest of the house. he could get his laptop, or something—? )
[ The thing is: TV feels too normal. A library feels too stifling. Quiet. A lounge is too, what, barren? All of it serves and promises to keep her alone, her brain rattled, but what won't? Music. Music is full of distracting sounds and noises, the sound of another person breathing and crooning into her ears, and if Marc wants to keep that boundary between them, this is her next best thing at not being by herself, at not going crazy. She knows it's outlandish and weird for her to ask, especially when she knowingly teased him over it.
And the way he looks at her, after, she makes her request makes her feel outlandish and weird. The way he tries to look into her room (the guest room, not even like the way he did when he saw her bedroom for the first time, and not she's finding she'd much prefer that than this) after, makes her want to cringe, to shout out that she actually didn't mean that and she's very tired. Wants to slam the door shut and drink her tea, lay down on the bed and wallow. Dissociate for as long as she can until she's forced to seek out entertainment.
She actually looks like she's about to do it, with the anxious way her body hums and how her knuckles curl tighter around the tea cup, the minute way her jaw flexes. But then heβ he.. Oh.
This isn't a no?
It's.. Not a no.
Her brows raise, eyes blinking at him a few times in surprise because she was so sure this is where he'd abandon her (strong words, used because Lottie is still lingering heavy in all her strong emotions, covering her brain in a honey so thick it's hard to wade out of). She sips at her tea, winces behind the cup. Where, he asksβ she hadn't thought about it. She hadn't considered music an option until it just, blurted out. And she doesn't have her phone, it's not like she can ask for a link to his spotify.
She shifts her weight back and forth, an unsure shrug of her shoulders sliding up. ]
I don't know.. [ It's a genuine I don't know (because she was half expecting Marc to have a record player, something not entirely unheard of for both of their generations nowadaysβ or even a stereo system, the man has a manor for crying out loud!). ] Wherever is good to listen to stuff here?
( each question and answer feels like it takes an age, a difficult balancing act that's not quite working of silences and words and misunderstandings. it's not that marc wants to keep distance between them, it's that he doesn't know how to bridge it. he never has.
as time had gone on, marlene and jean-paul had both reached the same conclusion, that whilst marc could be a good partner, a good friend, it was infrequent, it was irregular, it wasn't in any of the ways that they'd needed often enough. the first time frenchie had been injured — because of moon knight — marc had gone to the hospital. he'd been there, seen him, spoke to him.
the second time, he hadn't.
the second time, he'd thrown himself into moon knight more than ever because he didn't know how to acknowledge that jean-paul's injuries — the fact that he'd almost died — were because of what marc asked him to do night after night.
he'd tried to tell himself that, given their history, it was only expected. it was just the risk they run. that there were no assurances in lives like theirs, and it'd sounded hollow even in his own mind, so he hadn't gone. hadn't been able to look jean-paul in the face until marlene brought him home, back to the manor. until she'd asked him what the fuck he thought he was doing and marc had muttered something about finding them and revenge, something short and angry before leaving (the conversation, the manor, anything to escape).
he doesn't really know how to do this, to look at the consequences of his actions in someone else. it's one thing, something else entirely when it's him that's dealing with it, him that suffers. that's all part of this, a reminder. this — lottie stood, lost — in the doorway to a guest room in grant manor of all places, is not that.
lottie rocks in her indecisiveness, her lack of familiarity with the manor, with this, with what she's asking palpable. wherever is good to listen to stuff here, she answers, and marc presses his lips into a line. he gestures back towards the stairs and says— ) Downstairs.
( a moderately sized room that might have been a comfortable lounge once upon a time — a coffee table, a few books in a neat pile that have the appearance of being looked at somewhat recently, a glass of something half-drunk. a sofa. chairs. artwork (avant-garde) on the walls, the sort that could very well be a reflection of marc's tastes in a way that some of the more refined pieces of furniture and decorations aren't.
and a record player. a cd player, too, because neither marc nor jake can often be bothered with dusting off records, replacing needles, or anything else that goes into record player upkeep. none of them are anything marc's bought recently, all mementos of childhood because, frankly, marc doesn't really get why anyone would choose to have a record player in this day and age.
marc's music is all eighties. drama and melancholy. synthy new wave and post-punk. jake's is motown and disco, more fun than marc ever is. )
Take your pick.
( he doesn't quite realise, not yet, that some of the awkwardness isn't just because of what lottie's been through. it's not because he blames himself (he does) and he doesn't know how to process that right now, it's because he's brought her back here, to somewhere that's not just his. it's his and grant's and jake's, it's intimate — open — in a way that marc hasn't been with lottie, it's showing her parts of him that aren't just moon knight adjacent, that isn't just their weird little nights of tv and food. )
[ It's the artwork that really does her in, the peculiar way it screams at her that this place was definitely shared by more than Marc, once upon a time. Lived in long enough for someone to consider what they'd like the walls to look like, when it felt right to stare at them in boredom or grief or whatever.
Now, it is settling in, the weird ever constant reminder that she doesn't know as much about Marc as she thinks she does (because she does, she did, she has to have, because what else have they been sharing everything for? Has he been lying this whole time?). Like she thought she did, because thisβ this? She followed him into the house with little complaint, followed him to her room with little complaint, followed him down the stairs with little complaint. But now she is going insane, realizes that nothing of what happened today is normal and it's eating away at her with such an intensity she finds herself lost in staring at that avant-garde painting, too.
This, is probably the only thing that reminds her of Marc in all this.
The odd, lonely, way the brush strokes stare back at her. How detached and endlessly feeling her being is, all at once. It stings and sits and swallows her whole as he directs her to where the music will be playing. The record player, or the CD player, both of which she hasn't touched in years (the record player because it's trendy now, the CD player because she's not a tween anymore).
She sits down slow, aiming for steady but more wobbly, before mindlessly thumbing through both records and CD's. There's a a deep inhale, something that vaguely sounds displeased and frustrated, at the abrupt shift in taste. Disco? Marc is into disco, now? When there's nothing but 80's realness just a few records back? Who the hell lived here with him? Or was that just another thing he lied about, too? She frowns while her back is still to him, holding a vinyl she just picked at random, the sleeve so dusty she sneezes.
(It is Take On Me she holds in her hands, the three members of ever titular a-ha smizing tastefully at the camera.)
Still, despite how it bothers her, some of her and the way she lingers around everything bothers him, she doesn't bring it up. Just plugs her nose with her hand as she hands the vinyl somewhere behind her, somewhere she assumes him to be because she sure as hell doesn't know how to play things on a record player. ]
( he catches the inhale, the way that she sounds, suddenly, so unhappy, and his gaze snaps towards her, rests on the top of her head in a vain attempt to work out what it is that's bothering her.
(it doesn't work.)
he knows that there's a lot that lottie doesn't know about him, about his situation, about his everything, and he thought she knew that, too. that they were both on the same page about there being so much unsaid between them, a comfort to be found in the fact that neither of them asked questions and so neither of them got answers they didn't want to hear.
he takes the sleeve, lottie's fingers leaving stark spots of colour against the dust, a physical reminder that it's been a long time since marc's done any of this. listened to music like this, spent time in here with something — someone — other than his own thoughts and memories. she's picked out a record that's not quite marc's tastes — he knows it, of course he does, it'd been painfully popular and experienced a brief resurgence in the 2000s after some something or other band had covered the track. it'd been bought for him, he thinks, as a not-quite joke, accompanied by a remark about listening to something a little less gloomy once in a while.
he doesn't quite sigh knowing that the synth pop of a-ha is going to be startling loud, shocking in the silence of the manor, the silence between lottie and him regardless of volume. it'll disturb the uncomfortable not-peace of the situation. he guesses that's what lottie wants.
the infrequently listened to vinyl is slid out of the cardboard, placed on the equally infrequently used record player, needled lifted up and then placed carefully down on one of the grooves near the edge. a soft click and a whir, audible fuzz filling the silence before the first notes of the track start playing.
he looks to lottie, watches her. watches her reaction, studies her expression. he should say something, he thinks, should do something, should be—
[ The entire time she can feel his eyes on her. His stare, that manages to tell her so much when Marc willingly says so little. He matches her beat for beat, word for word practically, grabs the sleeve and lets the sound of him getting the record player ready take hold of the lavish room they're in.
The one that is filled with so many things, with Marc, and still she manages to feel very, very, alone.
A glutton for punishment, she sips at her tea again. Lets the heat curl unpleasant on her tongue and doesn't move from her spot. Simply sits and brings her legs up to her chest, stares ahead at the collection of favorite songs and bands that belong to somebody she doesn't know. Hell, maybe it is Marc's. Maybe it's Marlene's. His kid's. She doesn't know, and usually she wouldn't care, but right now it makes her skin crawl, being the odd one out. Being the anomaly in a house that is already one cohesive unit.
Marc belongs here, to some extent. She doesn't know if this is his vacation house or his actual house because he sleeps at the Mission, butβ. He's been to her house. He's been inside her bedroom, her kitchen. He knows where things are in her house, he has her Netflix password (whether he used it, that's up in the air, but she gave it to him and that's what matters, isn't it?). She bought him slippers.
The first notes of a-ha's Take on Me flitters to life, loud and so hilariously upbeat that it doesn't register at first. Every note, every stroke of a key, every beat of the drum just melts together as Marc's eyes burn the hottest they've done tonight, right at her back. Staring at his shirt, really, that sits weird atop her skin. She pulls the sleeves down further to completely encase her hands, places the teacup right by her toes and stares into the liquid. She feels her eyes water, feels herself crying all over again.
And thenβ she laughs something bitter, audibly strained. She bought him slippers. ]
..Nope. I'm good.
[ She wishes there was some way to turn up the volume, to drown out anything else he could say along with all her senses. To make the person who hardly desires to be present enough for her, at her most awful, get out of her sight. But since she can't, Lottie does what she does bestβ avoid her problems like it's normal. ]
( he feels cold. recognises the feeling, vaguely, as dread. recognises it as an unpleasant memory, of marc and marlene in similar positions in the same room. marc returning home after a night of moon knighting, after a night with stained glass scarlet and a night of questioning himself. unsure and indecisive about what he should do, of asking marlene and knowing that something was wrong, of asking her and just being told 'it's fine, forget it, just say what you came here to say'.
he can't see lottie cry but he can hear it, in the way that her words slide together, are enunciated in that slightly watery kind of way and he cringes. shortly after that he'd encountered carson knowles and marlene had left him — really left — for the first time, but not after painfully spelling out all the ways steven (marc, really—, everything she'd said had been about marc) was difficult, challenging. the futility of staying with him and the repetitiveness of his — everything.
the memory is there and he presses the heel of his hand against his forehead as if trying to bury it down, punctuated by a soft inhale of breath that's almost a groan before he makes his way around, to sit next to lottie. a-ha is loud in the silence, technically speaking but it feels the opposite. it feels like the silence is deafening, everything that's unsaid hanging between them like threats.
he looks to her, to the sleeves of his top, the one that's too big for her. laughably so, really, the way the shoulders droop down her arms, the way that the sleeves engulf her hands. )
This is what happens. ( an abrupt remark. he thought about prefacing it with an 'I'm sorry', but—. ) This is why they're gone, ( he adds instead, and he assumes she'll know he means marlene and frenchie and everyone else he's sort of but not really told her about. )
I'm sorry.
( he thinks that's what the problem is — him and the effect he has. everything that happens to the people he loves and cares about.
he doesn't think that the problem is him in an entirely different way, the fact that he doesn't trust enough to talk and to share. )
[ Forever absorbed in herself, she doesn't even think of how the way she acts will impact Marc. Is so swept up in herself and her own emotions that she can't be bothered to consider him when she wants him gone, when she's stubbornly decided how he feels already. To her, this is an open and shut case. It doesn't matter if she's so stupidly hurt by all of this. Doesn't matter if Marc shifts minutely, presses the heel of his hand against his forehead punctuate by an almost groan because he, too, is experiencing a flurry of emotions that are gripping him. And she knows. It's drowning him, too. And she knows.
(What she doesn't know, is how he sees Marlene in Lottie with the distinct way she so readily shuts him out, when he is searching for a solution to a problem he can't see.)
She hears him step closer, feet padding across the floor, to her first before she sees the edge of his arm in her peripheral. Marc sits beside her and Lottie doesn't expect it, is actually elated this is even happeningβ but she has to remind herself she's upset. She's upset even if he's trying to reach out, because it's not that simple. He can't decide to finally be near her and expect everything to be okay! It's not fair.
He turns his head and now his gaze is so close andβ it's not fair. She sniffles louder, stares even harder at the liquid inside that cup of tea (he made it for her) that shifts from their movement, tries her best to not look at him (looking so very put out, lost, like he aches for something he can't place) because he doesn't deserve it, her recognition. His lips part and his voice is uncharacteristically exposed, the loudest thing in the room. Louder than the bittersweet crooning vocals of a-ha floating about the room. They're at the chorus now, a hilarious crescendo that matches the way her heart stops, how her expression warbles in frustration.
What the fuckβ
She ducks her head into her knees to hide the furious tint to her eyes, the pain (her tears) that gathers at her eyes and slithers down her cheeks. Making her so effortless to read to him, because Lottie has always been like that. Predictable, easy to console, someone who is simple at heart. Whereas Marc is wholly the opposite, shifts in expression so minute it's a wonder she can tell them apart. And he doesn't deserve that, the easy way out. And in a way he doesn't deserve how she absolutely does not care about that, her apathy bubbling to a point where she refuses to acknowledge itβ his explanation, his sorry. ]
I bought you slippers.
[ It sounds stupid. It sounds silly. It isn't at all what she wants to say in response to Marc's apology, but it's what he gets. Because as stupid and silly as it may seem, as insignificant as it may seem, it meant a lot to her. As much as letting him become part of her life, as much as trusting him with keeping her personality a secret (an unspoken promise, but Marc has always known how much of herself she hides to be pleasant every day, he knows because she is so bratty and unpleasant, childish and demanding, of him daily). ]
( lottie worries that the shifts in her expression will make her easy to read, the way that her hurt and anger is broadcast so clearly in her eyes and the set of her mouth. and she's not wrong, not entirely, but where marc can see the what, he doesn't understand the why.
I bought you slippers is the last thing he expects to come out of her mouth, the emphasis sitting heavily in the air. accusatorily. and marc doesn't get it, and it's broadcast, clear as day, in his face. the way his brows furrow and his gaze lingers on lottie's, searching, before glancing away as if he'll find the answer somewhere in the corner of the room. as if the frankly absurd companionship of a-ha in the background will tell him whatever it is he's missing.
(is it because he's not wearing them? is it because she thinks he didn't appreciate the gesture?) )
I—. ( no. ) They're at the Mission. I don't stay here often.
(surely that's not it? surely that's not what the issue is? steven's good at reading people, jake's better at intuiting them, marc is— not. marc is blunt, simple in his own way, in a way that makes sense only to marc.
(is it the manor? the unfamiliar? maybe they should have gone to the mission, maybe he should have called andrea.) )
—Which is why.
( he waves a hand vaguely at the room and isn't quite sure if he means the dust here, disturbed there where marc's been and gone not quite recently but not that long go either; or whether he means why it looks like this, a capsule of three different people's tastes because marc doesn't have the time (he does) or the energy (emotional) to think about separating everything. )
[ She looks like he said the worst thing he could've in this situation. She uses the long sleeve of her shirt (his shirt) to wipe at her eyes, hiccupping in frustration. What the hell, of course he doesn't stay here often? There's dust. The bed hasn't looked like it's been touched in forever. The shirts and sweats she wears don't smell freshly laundered, but stuffy. Like they've been stuck in a closet for god knows long. Like they haven't been touched for longer.
The slippers aren't exactly it. Whatever Lottie says, if it's simple, it usually isn't. It's because it's the easiest thing for her to say, the least harsh thing to start with because if she gets honest, she's not sure she'd be able to stop. Slippers is just the easy way in, a hopeful stunt to see if he can snuff out the awful feeling settling in her chest before she has to say it.
Butβ he doesn't. Just waves his hand at the room like this is no big deal. That this is fine. Like she isn't crying and her emotions aren't valid, real, horrible to experience when he answers like this is a normal explanation to an abnormal evening. Day. Life. She looks at him this time, eyes red, the only reminder of her time sequestered away waiting for rescue being the bruise at her cheek. The one that phantom throbs when Marc stares at her a little too long, when she feels like running away and throwing up. ]
What is 'here'? [ A tense beat. A flippant toss of her hands up. ] Huh?
[ Lottie wonders if he ever really took his mask off. Wonders what difference there is, really, talking to Marc versus Moon Knight. Is there one? ]
How come I've never known about 'here'? Owning a mansion is kind of a big fucking deal, Marc! One with..
[ Things. Items. Furniture. Memories. Who the hell keeps something like this just locked away? Away from your friends? From her? ]
( he looks shocked. surprised. like he can't quite piece the information together or like he can, but he doesn't like how it sits together and he can't answer her question.
every time he thinks he knows what she's upset about, she says something else, provides him with something new and he has to start all over again.
(he doesn't miss the way she uses the over-long sleeve to wipe at her eyes, the way she hiccups but that it sounds more angry than it does upset. the way she throws her hands up to emphasise her point and the way she doesn't quite finish what she's saying. how is he supposed to answer that? he doesn't want to talk about it, has never wanted to talk about it and isn't that their thing? that they don't talk about things like this? for fuck's sake—.)
his expression shifts. sets, and he glances away from her to the room. to the everything she's referring to that she doesn't ask about.
fine.
fine! )
Grant Manor, ( he answers, bluntly. ) You can't think I've always lived at the Mission, Lottie. Believed that was where I had a life with Marlene? ( his turn to ask questions, fixing his attention back on lottie.
he'd prefer to talk about everything else — the night before all of this. the cause of all of this. the reason why he brought her here in the first place, but somehow, for some reason, lottie's opted to start talking about slippers and the manor. he leans back in the brief silence, watching her reaction, watching the changes in her expression, the way that her eyes are still watery with tears, the way that her nose is still running, the way that the lingering signs of her experience earlier in the night is still there in visible blotches across her skin.
it bothers him, but they've started this conversation now, so—. )
How would that go? 'By the way, I've got a house that I—' ( hate going to, hate for the memories, ) '—don't live in anymore, that I used to share with staff that no longer want anything to do with me, with a girlfriend that no longer wants anything to do with me, and a friend that no longer wants anything to do with me'?
( uttered in a way that sits between challenging and dismissive, a breath of a pause and he asserts— )
[ Okay. Okay, fine. Fine! She simmers in this, the way he so unpleasantly says Grant Manor. In the way he looks at her, so displeased and upset that he even has to say this. Lottie, in turn, is upset she's had to say this. It's their thing β pretending the outside world and their problems don't exist, but they've.. Talked. They talk. They've learned things about each other and she thought something like this would be up there with, uh, she doesn't know, his military tours? His fucking kid? He watches her, to see which way she bends after he asks her that question.
The answer? No. But she know he'd make her, so it's a yes. She knows that's where his heart and soul is now, so it'd obviously be a yes. And he continues, on, and on. She laughs in disbelief β the fact he's not even using 'ex', but 'a girlfriend', the fact he's trying to make her feel bad about all this. The way he exclaims it's not important. She gives up on giving him the cold shoulder, instead twisting her torso to face him as Take on Me loops again. ]
Newsflash Marc! Where do you think Sunny hung at all the time?? My ex.
[ Now the chords feel sinister, feel like they're a countdown to something that's fit to burst. ]
Where do you think he'd wake up every morning? Where do you think he'd watch me make coffee? Huh? [ Her cheeks grow warm from how high her pitch is getting β something rare and difficult for someone so naturally soft-spoken. ] Right at the countertopβ he'd lean over and tilt his head all stupid when I'd make the pot and say something about how drinking too much is bad for me.
[ And he would look at her, whenever he'd wake up, like she was the most precious thing in the world. Sometimes she still thinks about it, when she turns over to an empty bed.
She clenches her jaw hard, feels her hands shake as she tries to control her temper. ]
That's so nice you get to move away from all the shit you don't like seeing but some of us can't! And it isβ it is important. If I knew this wasβ [ Like how her bed was, the month after her breakup. An item she couldn't touch. She slept on the couch for a long time even after that. She inhales deeply. ] I would've said let's just get a hotel or whatever!
( she goes off on a rant about sunny and about him being able to escape the lingering reminders of everything by having the mission and if he was the laughing type, it'd be his turn to laugh in disbelief, to scoff, but instead he's silent. she really, truly thinks that by him being able to leave here, he's not reminded of any of it? moon knight — marc spector! — had been the problem, and he has to face that every day.
she tells him about what sunny would do, about how she remembers him and doesn't get a choice in leaving it all behind (he thinks that if she really wanted to, she could), tells him that her knowing about this was important, voice high and loud and somewhere between dramatic and, for lottie, desperate.
(she'd been in no fit state to say anything about where they could go — hotel, her apartment, the mission, or anywhere else. he doesn't say that, but the sentiment — skepticism — lines his face as he ignores the remark.) )
So what is it? ( he asks, gaze shifting away from her to the record player then back again as the song resettles into its groove (in more ways than one). ) What about the manor is so important? What are you upset I didn't tell you?
Because none of this is important to me.
( he doesn't think of it as a lie because it both is and isn't true. the manor's important, the memories are important, what it meant was important, but the now, the who and what he has instead, is more important. the friends he has now, the little found family he's formed of people still learning but leaning on each other all the same. the place — a little corner of manhattan, more of a community than the vast, sprawling manor on long island had ever had around it.
the manor is difficult and uncomfortable, part of a past he can't quite let go of and can't quite articulate as to why, but—.
(marc has never quite been able to let go of his past, has clung to the idea that if he does and does and does, it'll let go of him and maybe somehow he'll find respite and — internal — peace.) )
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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—she shuts the door on him.
he stands there for a moment longer, mouth parted in deep surprise at her reaction. something (someone) at the back of his mind says 'well done', and he presses his hand against the bridge of his nose. well fucking done indeed. he's not sure what he's done to upset her more than she already was, but apparently, he's done it.
he gives her five minutes before padding back towards his bedroom, five minutes before he strips out of the cape, the cowl, the mask, the boots, all of it. it's dumped unceremoniously in a pile in the corner of the bathroom before he showers, years of practise and use meaning the shower's turned on quickly, meaning he showers quickly. takes long enough to become clean, for the water to stop running down the drain tinged with pink.
like lottie, marc's body is adorned with bruises and cuts though his are entirely the result of his own actions and not all from tonight. his are the result of willingness, of choice, of a decision made of his own free will. he doesn't cry about his, never has and never will. they're testaments to how he feels about himself, about what he needs to do to silence the guilt and the loathing that feels like it takes up his entire soul.
they're deserved.
he dresses in his clothes — spector's — a plain, loose-fit t-shirt tucked into an equally plain pair of trousers. he doesn't stay in the bedroom — he heads towards the guest room, pauses outside, and then reaches the conclusion that he's a fucking idiot, and heads back to his room.
it's an unpleasant feeling, the sensation that something's not right and he doesn't know what to move or how to get the pieces to fall into place. he hates it, hates the way that the night's gone, and he's antsy. he knows that if lottie wasn't here, he wouldn't be either, he'd find somewhere else to be, someone — anyone — to take his feelings out on, anything to take the uncomfortable edge off.
it feels like it's caught in chest, in his head, and—
then there's a noise. faint. questioning. a little plaintive.
back to the guest room and the door's open and his breath catches and—
it's lottie, her green hair wet and slick and visible, even through the crack in the door.
(fuck.) )
Lottie?
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She has all those things and yet, she doesn't use them. Just.. Stays quiet for another moment, feeling spectacularly embarrassed for no reason at all.
(It's because she can't fit in the shirt, it is definitely because of that.)
She clears her throat nervously, glances down to the ground as she tries to not let the way her hair drips over her skin bug her. Tries to not let the fact she's making a mess on the floor, bug her. ]
..Um, is it okay if I can wear one of your shirts?
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he can see that she's dressed only in a towel and, the longer the silence lasts, the more marc slowly pieces together what she's about to ask. he'd been wrong. marlene's clothes don't fit her.
(is that why she's awkward? embarrassed in a way that marc doesn't often see from her?)
he opens his mouth to speak just as lottie coughs and looks down and away from him. it's not quite a slice of normality because there's nothing normal about any of this for either of them, but it's almost laughably mundane given the events of the night. )
—Yeah, sure.
( like he'd say 'no'? the answer is given immediately, almost before she's finished asking, and it's only a few moments before he returns with something of his in hand, held out towards her. it's given with a— ) Sorry, ( said to break the silence that feels palpable. there's a brief, sharp moment where marc wonders if she's going to slam the door in his face (again), and he shifts his weight to push a foot forward, enough to stop the door closing entirely if she decides to just for long enough to ask— )
Do you want a drink?
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He apologizes and β Lottie just takes the shirt, odd and quiet because she was going to say that, but now she can't because he said it first so she opts for a weird, ] It's okay.. [ Because it isn't really his fault..? Men, historically (to her), have never managed to get sizing right. All of two times did Sunny buy her a dress and a pair of pants that fit, so her expectations have always been spectacularly low.
She lingers by the door, having truly no idea what else she could say but not wanting to leave just yet either. But there's the issue of the fact she's still wet, still dripping, her wet hair clinging uncomfortably to her skin in a way that makes it crawl. She'd like to be dressed before she gets sick on top of this butβ she doesn't move. Marc does, actually, closing the distance in the thick silence that overtakes them.
(In the moment he does slyly slip that foot between her door, she actually was about to close it. She can't change with an open door β especially with no clean underwear. It's a problem that Esther has admonished her before about, something something "You can't keep kicking me out every time you need an outfit change!") ]
Uh.. [ Marc asks if, of all things, she wants a drink, and.. She clings his shirt a little to her chest, not out of anger or apprehension. She's just a littleβ surprised? ] Uh, yeah, if that's alright?
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it won't actually change anything — whatever she opts for, whatever marc takes the time to make, they both know it won't take as long as her making sure she's something approaching presentable, even when it's just the two of them, even when it's a pair of (old) sweatpants and one of marc's t-shirts. )
The kitchen's downstairs and to your left, ( he tells her, gaze shifting pointedly away. as if he can see through the floor to where he's talking about. the kitchen — like the rest of the house — is clearly made for more than two occupants of the house, is made for a family. it's disused, sparse in a way that speaks of its sole (infrequent) occupant leaning into practicality over anything else — coffee, first and foremost, and then food — leftover takeout, no real ingredients to speak of. ) I'll wait down there for you.
( a breath of a pause punctuated by something akin to realisation and a quick, searching glance of lottie's face. ) Unless you want me to bring it back up.
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She leans back, unsure of what he's searching for and almost too scared to ask (because what is he seeing that she isn't? What kind of Lottie is she showing him, without even realizing it?). She palms at the shirt in her hand, glancing somewhere up and off to the side because his eyes areβ for once, they're a little too intense. Too earnest. She vaguely wishes for the buffer of his mask because eye contact is hard, for some reason. She shuffles her weight from foot to foot, tugging the towel around her tighter. ]
Coffee? You can bring it back up to me..
[ There's a beat, where she opens her lips but has to physically stop herself from adding 'if that's okay'. She knows it is, she really does, but it's hard not to add it when she feels so much like a burden in so little time. She finally meets his gaze again, reaching up to wipe some water off her face. ]
Just my usual, I guess?
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she looks away from him, unable to meet his gaze, and marc thinks that this is it, the moment where she puts two and two together. where she realises that moon knight is marc spector is danger is a problem, and she decides that she doesn't want anything more to do with him. that there's a reason why marc doesn't have anyone in his life, why marlene had moved away with diatrice, why jean-paul had said enough was enough — jean-paul! the very man that'd pulled marc into bushman's orbit, into a (very successful) mercenary life. jean-paul, of all fucking people, had decided that marc was too much, and if he couldn't stand marc spector, then why would lottie person be able to? she doesn't deserve any of this—.
he inhales and runs a hand through his still damp hair, curling softly at the ends in a way that marc usually hides with either his mask or determined combing up and back. her usual, she says, and marc thinks he'll give it his best shot but the only coffee he usually makes is black, accompanied infrequently by a dash of milk and a couple of teaspoons of sugar.
(does he even have non-dairy milk? fuck. shit.) )
—As a back-up?
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She'll think of it as an unfortunate one off, a terrible incident that neither of them could've seen coming. She'll think of it as an unfortunate one off because it will not happen againβ and whether she distances herself from Marc for a little is still left in the air, still unclear. Just like how she did to Caroline when she pushed somebody off a building and almost billed Lottie as an accessory (and she almost didn't even talk to her again after that, only being convinced by the visit of Virgil that she needs her).
Now, she is still in a hard to navigate maze of emotions, of thoughts. Some middling on simple and the other middling on so complicated she wants to just numb her brain out. He inhales and runs a hand through his drying hair and sheβ stands there. Watches the way his hair bounces and looks when it isn't covered by sweat and his mask.
She pauses for all of two seconds before hitting him with: ]
βTea. [ Whatever blend he has, she means. ] Hot is okay.
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marc spector, who'd grown up poor, not quite steven grant, who was used — entirely — to a life of luxury, to loose-leaf tea and to a certain degree of standards.
tea, she says, and marc's expression shifts only slightly in acknowledgement, his foot sliding back and away from the door in acceptance. finally, he's willing to allow lottie the privacy she requires to change into his t-shirt and marlene's pants whilst he busies himself with making coffee and tea, busies himself with anything that's not his thoughts, because he knows if he allows that to happen, he won't be quite himself. won't be the marc that lottie knows, is familiar with.
it's fifteen minutes later, then, that marc returns to the room with one cup of black coffee in one hand, and one cup of tea in the other. neither are especially good but they're serviceable, and marc finds himself wishing with more earnestness than he'd have expected of himself, for nedda. she'd have known the meal to make to set the world to rights (or close to it), she'd have known the tea to brew to set lottie's nerves at ease, the dinner to make.
this is the sort of scenario where a mirror is held up to marc spector and he's found wanting.
he taps the door with his foot in lieu of having any free hands, and waits for lottie to re-emerge. when she does, when she holds open the door, he'll hold the cup in his right (dominant) hand out to her, the cup of earl grey minus milk, minus sugar. )
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And with no makeup, with no skincare in sight other than some lotion, Lottie is.. Done.
She is done getting ready and lookingβ well, she has no idea what she looks like and she wants it to stay that way, quite frankly. The less she knows, the better. The less fretting, the less panicking, the less crying. So she sits on her bed for the night and waits for something to do.
(Or: waits for Marc to return, so she'll have less of an excuse to be in her head.)
The tap tap tap makes her jolt, makes her tense and the why, she can't explain. But when she reminds herself she is at Marc's gigantic empty ass mansion, that it's just Marc, and that she can turn the lights on instead of sitting in the dark like a weirdo, she gets up. Opens the door slowly and sees a Marc with cups in both hands. Marc will see a Lottie who's looking better than worse, who is swimming in the plainly colored top. The sleeves are long enough to cover her hands (her wrists, is the important thing) and she's far more cozy, domestic adjacent, like this, looking vaguely bewildered at his appearance, like she forgot he'd be coming back. She takes the one offered: the tea. It's nice and warm in her hands and the steam, if she positions it just right, makes her nose feel less stuffy.
She doesn't drink it, however β in a way she doesn't need to, to figure the taste, she knows there's no milk, no sugar (Marc doesn't seem like the person to have those things at the ready normally, but especially not here, in a manor he's never told her about). Lottie simply palms it, switches hands when the heat begins to become uncomfortable on her skin. ]
..Thanks.
[ She says, and that should be the end of that, quite frankly, but.. It isn't. Lottie awkwardly lingers at her door, using herself as a stopper (no foot is required this time, Marc). And even she can't pinpoint the reason whyβ is it because after this, she thinks she'll be alone? That he'll go back to the Mission for the night and leave her? With no phone or anything? Is it because she's not sure if she should sleep, if she can? Does she want him here?
She uses a free hand to gesture down to her own cup, speaks into the silenceβ ]
It, uh, looks good.
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he looks less awkward and more guilty, concern etched in the frown pinching his eyebrows together, the steady gaze fixed on lottie. it's not an expression seen often, but it's one that marc wears often beneath his mask, at nighttime, whenever he spends too long by himself thinking.
thanks, she says, and he doesn't say anything. he drinks a mouthful of coffee instead, grimacing slightly at the heat but god, it's good to drink something. he's tired. (how long has he been awake? he doesn't know.) then she says the tea looks good and he makes a noise, an exhale of breath through his nose that's part amusement, part scoff, because it doesn't. it's just tea.
grant drinks tea on occasion, loose leaf stuff that marc doesn't have the patience for. marc learnt to make tea in the marines, stationed alongside british soldiers in the middle east. a teabag dumped in a mug, hot water added, then milk. ('never trust a man that puts milk in his tea before the water, spector—'.) it's nothing fancy, nothing special. )
You don't have to just stand in the doorway, Lottie. ( to get to the point. ) You should rest, ( he adds and means 'you should try and get some sleep', but he knows that needing sleep and being able to sleep are two very different things. ) If you don't want to stay up here, there's the lounge. TV. The library.
( distractions. )
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He says she should do these things, she should rest. If she doesn't want to stay up here, she can go elsewhere. It's a reasonable assumption, from all she's given him, from all she's been through, that she might not want him there. Would want to be alone. Lottie knows this, desperately knows she's not being easy to read or reasonable and who would want to hang out with someone like that? She spaces out, deep in the trenches of her mind that her grip on her tea almost goes slack.
It's, really, the fact he's so ready to take that decision away from her makes her, she doesn't know, sad? Frustrated? Lottie stares at him with an unreadable expression, the only tinge of real emotion edging on is: hurt. Then: understanding. Something like resignation settling deep in her bones because she is tired. Tired of thinking, of being so angry.
But she doesn't want to sleepβ probably can't, with the way she's been existing since he picked her up. Her tongue burns from the tea, and her mouth feels like cotton, standing still in her doorway, feeling the walls close in around her.
And thenβ she swings the door open wider, clenches her jaw in a bout of hesitation, worry, ]
Can Iβ [ She swallows. ] can I listen to some of your music?
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that he shouldn't have brought her here, to grant manor. that it'd been a selfish decision, the sort that marc's good at making, where he decides he knows the best course of action and will take precisely zero input on the matter.
then she speaks and it's the last thing he expects to come out of lottie's mouth, a request to listen to music. his music. music that he doesn't even listen to all that often, only infrequently when he's feeling self-indulgent, when he needs some kind of noise as a distraction which is not often. he's never really been into music — sort of, here and there, as a kid and a teenager, and then there'd been other priorities. listening to the radio or keeping up with what was cool had never been something he'd done.
it's an out of the blue request that has marc's eyebrows arching and his gaze sliding from lottie to the inside of (frenchie's) room, to the sparse decor that marc hadn't bothered to replace once frenchie, like marlene, moved out. there's nothing in there for her (them?) to play music on, and it's his turn to look hesitant, doubtful, not out of a desire to say no, but because he's not sure how to say yes. )
Here? Or—. ( a loose wave, a gesture — vague — at the rest of the house. he could get his laptop, or something—? )
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And the way he looks at her, after, she makes her request makes her feel outlandish and weird. The way he tries to look into her room (the guest room, not even like the way he did when he saw her bedroom for the first time, and not she's finding she'd much prefer that than this) after, makes her want to cringe, to shout out that she actually didn't mean that and she's very tired. Wants to slam the door shut and drink her tea, lay down on the bed and wallow. Dissociate for as long as she can until she's forced to seek out entertainment.
She actually looks like she's about to do it, with the anxious way her body hums and how her knuckles curl tighter around the tea cup, the minute way her jaw flexes. But then heβ he.. Oh.
This isn't a no?
It's.. Not a no.
Her brows raise, eyes blinking at him a few times in surprise because she was so sure this is where he'd abandon her (strong words, used because Lottie is still lingering heavy in all her strong emotions, covering her brain in a honey so thick it's hard to wade out of). She sips at her tea, winces behind the cup. Where, he asksβ she hadn't thought about it. She hadn't considered music an option until it just, blurted out. And she doesn't have her phone, it's not like she can ask for a link to his spotify.
She shifts her weight back and forth, an unsure shrug of her shoulders sliding up. ]
I don't know.. [ It's a genuine I don't know (because she was half expecting Marc to have a record player, something not entirely unheard of for both of their generations nowadaysβ or even a stereo system, the man has a manor for crying out loud!). ] Wherever is good to listen to stuff here?
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as time had gone on, marlene and jean-paul had both reached the same conclusion, that whilst marc could be a good partner, a good friend, it was infrequent, it was irregular, it wasn't in any of the ways that they'd needed often enough. the first time frenchie had been injured — because of moon knight — marc had gone to the hospital. he'd been there, seen him, spoke to him.
the second time, he hadn't.
the second time, he'd thrown himself into moon knight more than ever because he didn't know how to acknowledge that jean-paul's injuries — the fact that he'd almost died — were because of what marc asked him to do night after night.
he'd tried to tell himself that, given their history, it was only expected. it was just the risk they run. that there were no assurances in lives like theirs, and it'd sounded hollow even in his own mind, so he hadn't gone. hadn't been able to look jean-paul in the face until marlene brought him home, back to the manor. until she'd asked him what the fuck he thought he was doing and marc had muttered something about finding them and revenge, something short and angry before leaving (the conversation, the manor, anything to escape).
he doesn't really know how to do this, to look at the consequences of his actions in someone else. it's one thing, something else entirely when it's him that's dealing with it, him that suffers. that's all part of this, a reminder. this — lottie stood, lost — in the doorway to a guest room in grant manor of all places, is not that.
lottie rocks in her indecisiveness, her lack of familiarity with the manor, with this, with what she's asking palpable. wherever is good to listen to stuff here, she answers, and marc presses his lips into a line. he gestures back towards the stairs and says— ) Downstairs.
( a moderately sized room that might have been a comfortable lounge once upon a time — a coffee table, a few books in a neat pile that have the appearance of being looked at somewhat recently, a glass of something half-drunk. a sofa. chairs. artwork (avant-garde) on the walls, the sort that could very well be a reflection of marc's tastes in a way that some of the more refined pieces of furniture and decorations aren't.
and a record player. a cd player, too, because neither marc nor jake can often be bothered with dusting off records, replacing needles, or anything else that goes into record player upkeep. none of them are anything marc's bought recently, all mementos of childhood because, frankly, marc doesn't really get why anyone would choose to have a record player in this day and age.
marc's music is all eighties. drama and melancholy. synthy new wave and post-punk. jake's is motown and disco, more fun than marc ever is. )
Take your pick.
( he doesn't quite realise, not yet, that some of the awkwardness isn't just because of what lottie's been through. it's not because he blames himself (he does) and he doesn't know how to process that right now, it's because he's brought her back here, to somewhere that's not just his. it's his and grant's and jake's, it's intimate — open — in a way that marc hasn't been with lottie, it's showing her parts of him that aren't just moon knight adjacent, that isn't just their weird little nights of tv and food. )
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Now, it is settling in, the weird ever constant reminder that she doesn't know as much about Marc as she thinks she does (because she does, she did, she has to have, because what else have they been sharing everything for? Has he been lying this whole time?). Like she thought she did, because thisβ this? She followed him into the house with little complaint, followed him to her room with little complaint, followed him down the stairs with little complaint. But now she is going insane, realizes that nothing of what happened today is normal and it's eating away at her with such an intensity she finds herself lost in staring at that avant-garde painting, too.
This, is probably the only thing that reminds her of Marc in all this.
The odd, lonely, way the brush strokes stare back at her. How detached and endlessly feeling her being is, all at once. It stings and sits and swallows her whole as he directs her to where the music will be playing. The record player, or the CD player, both of which she hasn't touched in years (the record player because it's trendy now, the CD player because she's not a tween anymore).
She sits down slow, aiming for steady but more wobbly, before mindlessly thumbing through both records and CD's. There's a a deep inhale, something that vaguely sounds displeased and frustrated, at the abrupt shift in taste. Disco? Marc is into disco, now? When there's nothing but 80's realness just a few records back? Who the hell lived here with him? Or was that just another thing he lied about, too? She frowns while her back is still to him, holding a vinyl she just picked at random, the sleeve so dusty she sneezes.
(It is Take On Me she holds in her hands, the three members of ever titular a-ha smizing tastefully at the camera.)
Still, despite how it bothers her, some of her and the way she lingers around everything bothers him, she doesn't bring it up. Just plugs her nose with her hand as she hands the vinyl somewhere behind her, somewhere she assumes him to be because she sure as hell doesn't know how to play things on a record player. ]
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(it doesn't work.)
he knows that there's a lot that lottie doesn't know about him, about his situation, about his everything, and he thought she knew that, too. that they were both on the same page about there being so much unsaid between them, a comfort to be found in the fact that neither of them asked questions and so neither of them got answers they didn't want to hear.
he takes the sleeve, lottie's fingers leaving stark spots of colour against the dust, a physical reminder that it's been a long time since marc's done any of this. listened to music like this, spent time in here with something — someone — other than his own thoughts and memories. she's picked out a record that's not quite marc's tastes — he knows it, of course he does, it'd been painfully popular and experienced a brief resurgence in the 2000s after some something or other band had covered the track. it'd been bought for him, he thinks, as a not-quite joke, accompanied by a remark about listening to something a little less gloomy once in a while.
he doesn't quite sigh knowing that the synth pop of a-ha is going to be startling loud, shocking in the silence of the manor, the silence between lottie and him regardless of volume. it'll disturb the uncomfortable not-peace of the situation. he guesses that's what lottie wants.
the infrequently listened to vinyl is slid out of the cardboard, placed on the equally infrequently used record player, needled lifted up and then placed carefully down on one of the grooves near the edge. a soft click and a whir, audible fuzz filling the silence before the first notes of the track start playing.
he looks to lottie, watches her. watches her reaction, studies her expression. he should say something, he thinks, should do something, should be—
—more. )
—Do you want anything else?
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The one that is filled with so many things, with Marc, and still she manages to feel very, very, alone.
A glutton for punishment, she sips at her tea again. Lets the heat curl unpleasant on her tongue and doesn't move from her spot. Simply sits and brings her legs up to her chest, stares ahead at the collection of favorite songs and bands that belong to somebody she doesn't know. Hell, maybe it is Marc's. Maybe it's Marlene's. His kid's. She doesn't know, and usually she wouldn't care, but right now it makes her skin crawl, being the odd one out. Being the anomaly in a house that is already one cohesive unit.
Marc belongs here, to some extent. She doesn't know if this is his vacation house or his actual house because he sleeps at the Mission, butβ. He's been to her house. He's been inside her bedroom, her kitchen. He knows where things are in her house, he has her Netflix password (whether he used it, that's up in the air, but she gave it to him and that's what matters, isn't it?). She bought him slippers.
The first notes of a-ha's Take on Me flitters to life, loud and so hilariously upbeat that it doesn't register at first. Every note, every stroke of a key, every beat of the drum just melts together as Marc's eyes burn the hottest they've done tonight, right at her back. Staring at his shirt, really, that sits weird atop her skin. She pulls the sleeves down further to completely encase her hands, places the teacup right by her toes and stares into the liquid. She feels her eyes water, feels herself crying all over again.
And thenβ she laughs something bitter, audibly strained. She bought him slippers. ]
..Nope. I'm good.
[ She wishes there was some way to turn up the volume, to drown out anything else he could say along with all her senses. To make the person who hardly desires to be present enough for her, at her most awful, get out of her sight. But since she can't, Lottie does what she does bestβ avoid her problems like it's normal. ]
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he can't see lottie cry but he can hear it, in the way that her words slide together, are enunciated in that slightly watery kind of way and he cringes. shortly after that he'd encountered carson knowles and marlene had left him — really left — for the first time, but not after painfully spelling out all the ways steven (marc, really—, everything she'd said had been about marc) was difficult, challenging. the futility of staying with him and the repetitiveness of his — everything.
the memory is there and he presses the heel of his hand against his forehead as if trying to bury it down, punctuated by a soft inhale of breath that's almost a groan before he makes his way around, to sit next to lottie. a-ha is loud in the silence, technically speaking but it feels the opposite. it feels like the silence is deafening, everything that's unsaid hanging between them like threats.
he looks to her, to the sleeves of his top, the one that's too big for her. laughably so, really, the way the shoulders droop down her arms, the way that the sleeves engulf her hands. )
This is what happens. ( an abrupt remark. he thought about prefacing it with an 'I'm sorry', but—. ) This is why they're gone, ( he adds instead, and he assumes she'll know he means marlene and frenchie and everyone else he's sort of but not really told her about. )
I'm sorry.
( he thinks that's what the problem is — him and the effect he has. everything that happens to the people he loves and cares about.
he doesn't think that the problem is him in an entirely different way, the fact that he doesn't trust enough to talk and to share. )
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(What she doesn't know, is how he sees Marlene in Lottie with the distinct way she so readily shuts him out, when he is searching for a solution to a problem he can't see.)
She hears him step closer, feet padding across the floor, to her first before she sees the edge of his arm in her peripheral. Marc sits beside her and Lottie doesn't expect it, is actually elated this is even happeningβ but she has to remind herself she's upset. She's upset even if he's trying to reach out, because it's not that simple. He can't decide to finally be near her and expect everything to be okay! It's not fair.
He turns his head and now his gaze is so close andβ it's not fair. She sniffles louder, stares even harder at the liquid inside that cup of tea (he made it for her) that shifts from their movement, tries her best to not look at him (looking so very put out, lost, like he aches for something he can't place) because he doesn't deserve it, her recognition. His lips part and his voice is uncharacteristically exposed, the loudest thing in the room. Louder than the bittersweet crooning vocals of a-ha floating about the room. They're at the chorus now, a hilarious crescendo that matches the way her heart stops, how her expression warbles in frustration.
What the fuckβ
She ducks her head into her knees to hide the furious tint to her eyes, the pain (her tears) that gathers at her eyes and slithers down her cheeks. Making her so effortless to read to him, because Lottie has always been like that. Predictable, easy to console, someone who is simple at heart. Whereas Marc is wholly the opposite, shifts in expression so minute it's a wonder she can tell them apart. And he doesn't deserve that, the easy way out. And in a way he doesn't deserve how she absolutely does not care about that, her apathy bubbling to a point where she refuses to acknowledge itβ his explanation, his sorry. ]
I bought you slippers.
[ It sounds stupid. It sounds silly. It isn't at all what she wants to say in response to Marc's apology, but it's what he gets. Because as stupid and silly as it may seem, as insignificant as it may seem, it meant a lot to her. As much as letting him become part of her life, as much as trusting him with keeping her personality a secret (an unspoken promise, but Marc has always known how much of herself she hides to be pleasant every day, he knows because she is so bratty and unpleasant, childish and demanding, of him daily). ]
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I bought you slippers is the last thing he expects to come out of her mouth, the emphasis sitting heavily in the air. accusatorily. and marc doesn't get it, and it's broadcast, clear as day, in his face. the way his brows furrow and his gaze lingers on lottie's, searching, before glancing away as if he'll find the answer somewhere in the corner of the room. as if the frankly absurd companionship of a-ha in the background will tell him whatever it is he's missing.
(is it because he's not wearing them? is it because she thinks he didn't appreciate the gesture?) )
I—. ( no. ) They're at the Mission. I don't stay here often.
( surely that's not it? surely that's not what the issue is? steven's good at reading people, jake's better at intuiting them, marc is— not. marc is blunt, simple in his own way, in a way that makes sense only to marc.
(is it the manor? the unfamiliar? maybe they should have gone to the mission, maybe he should have called andrea.) )
—Which is why.
( he waves a hand vaguely at the room and isn't quite sure if he means the dust here, disturbed there where marc's been and gone not quite recently but not that long go either; or whether he means why it looks like this, a capsule of three different people's tastes because marc doesn't have the time (he does) or the energy (emotional) to think about separating everything. )
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The slippers aren't exactly it. Whatever Lottie says, if it's simple, it usually isn't. It's because it's the easiest thing for her to say, the least harsh thing to start with because if she gets honest, she's not sure she'd be able to stop. Slippers is just the easy way in, a hopeful stunt to see if he can snuff out the awful feeling settling in her chest before she has to say it.
Butβ he doesn't. Just waves his hand at the room like this is no big deal. That this is fine. Like she isn't crying and her emotions aren't valid, real, horrible to experience when he answers like this is a normal explanation to an abnormal evening. Day. Life. She looks at him this time, eyes red, the only reminder of her time sequestered away waiting for rescue being the bruise at her cheek. The one that phantom throbs when Marc stares at her a little too long, when she feels like running away and throwing up. ]
What is 'here'? [ A tense beat. A flippant toss of her hands up. ] Huh?
[ Lottie wonders if he ever really took his mask off. Wonders what difference there is, really, talking to Marc versus Moon Knight. Is there one? ]
How come I've never known about 'here'? Owning a mansion is kind of a big fucking deal, Marc! One with..
[ Things. Items. Furniture. Memories. Who the hell keeps something like this just locked away? Away from your friends? From her? ]
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( he looks shocked. surprised. like he can't quite piece the information together or like he can, but he doesn't like how it sits together and he can't answer her question.
every time he thinks he knows what she's upset about, she says something else, provides him with something new and he has to start all over again.
(he doesn't miss the way she uses the over-long sleeve to wipe at her eyes, the way she hiccups but that it sounds more angry than it does upset. the way she throws her hands up to emphasise her point and the way she doesn't quite finish what she's saying. how is he supposed to answer that? he doesn't want to talk about it, has never wanted to talk about it and isn't that their thing? that they don't talk about things like this? for fuck's sake—.)
his expression shifts. sets, and he glances away from her to the room. to the everything she's referring to that she doesn't ask about.
fine.
fine! )
Grant Manor, ( he answers, bluntly. ) You can't think I've always lived at the Mission, Lottie. Believed that was where I had a life with Marlene? ( his turn to ask questions, fixing his attention back on lottie.
he'd prefer to talk about everything else — the night before all of this. the cause of all of this. the reason why he brought her here in the first place, but somehow, for some reason, lottie's opted to start talking about slippers and the manor. he leans back in the brief silence, watching her reaction, watching the changes in her expression, the way that her eyes are still watery with tears, the way that her nose is still running, the way that the lingering signs of her experience earlier in the night is still there in visible blotches across her skin.
it bothers him, but they've started this conversation now, so—. )
How would that go? 'By the way, I've got a house that I—' ( hate going to, hate for the memories, ) '—don't live in anymore, that I used to share with staff that no longer want anything to do with me, with a girlfriend that no longer wants anything to do with me, and a friend that no longer wants anything to do with me'?
( uttered in a way that sits between challenging and dismissive, a breath of a pause and he asserts— )
It's not important.
( no, it is important and that's the problem. )
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The answer? No. But she know he'd make her, so it's a yes. She knows that's where his heart and soul is now, so it'd obviously be a yes. And he continues, on, and on. She laughs in disbelief β the fact he's not even using 'ex', but 'a girlfriend', the fact he's trying to make her feel bad about all this. The way he exclaims it's not important. She gives up on giving him the cold shoulder, instead twisting her torso to face him as Take on Me loops again. ]
Newsflash Marc! Where do you think Sunny hung at all the time?? My ex.
[ Now the chords feel sinister, feel like they're a countdown to something that's fit to burst. ]
Where do you think he'd wake up every morning? Where do you think he'd watch me make coffee? Huh? [ Her cheeks grow warm from how high her pitch is getting β something rare and difficult for someone so naturally soft-spoken. ] Right at the countertopβ he'd lean over and tilt his head all stupid when I'd make the pot and say something about how drinking too much is bad for me.
[ And he would look at her, whenever he'd wake up, like she was the most precious thing in the world. Sometimes she still thinks about it, when she turns over to an empty bed.
She clenches her jaw hard, feels her hands shake as she tries to control her temper. ]
That's so nice you get to move away from all the shit you don't like seeing but some of us can't! And it isβ it is important. If I knew this wasβ [ Like how her bed was, the month after her breakup. An item she couldn't touch. She slept on the couch for a long time even after that. She inhales deeply. ] I would've said let's just get a hotel or whatever!
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she tells him about what sunny would do, about how she remembers him and doesn't get a choice in leaving it all behind (he thinks that if she really wanted to, she could), tells him that her knowing about this was important, voice high and loud and somewhere between dramatic and, for lottie, desperate.
(she'd been in no fit state to say anything about where they could go — hotel, her apartment, the mission, or anywhere else. he doesn't say that, but the sentiment — skepticism — lines his face as he ignores the remark.) )
So what is it? ( he asks, gaze shifting away from her to the record player then back again as the song resettles into its groove (in more ways than one). ) What about the manor is so important? What are you upset I didn't tell you?
Because none of this is important to me.
( he doesn't think of it as a lie because it both is and isn't true. the manor's important, the memories are important, what it meant was important, but the now, the who and what he has instead, is more important. the friends he has now, the little found family he's formed of people still learning but leaning on each other all the same. the place — a little corner of manhattan, more of a community than the vast, sprawling manor on long island had ever had around it.
the manor is difficult and uncomfortable, part of a past he can't quite let go of and can't quite articulate as to why, but—.
(marc has never quite been able to let go of his past, has clung to the idea that if he does and does and does, it'll let go of him and maybe somehow he'll find respite and — internal — peace.) )
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