Author's Note: Obviously the alternate summary is "angsty romance with masks." Because of the fun of the Marth/Lucina gender ambiguity, I leave a lot of pronouns out. Hopefully it doesn't flow too awkwardly. Also, this takes place in the Future Past future, where Lucina tries to perform the Awakening. I'm super hazy on the kids' timeline and time travel and all that, so please to be forgiving any liberties I may have taken.
They were staying the night in the castle, where Lucina had summoned them. Night had fallen early. By the faint glow of the fire in the hearth of the great hall, the Exalt had told them her plan: that they must all leave her side and hasten to Plegia come dawn, to find the gemstones and the Fire Emblem.
Gerome was tasked with finding Vert, and knew he would not be able to sleep that night. Despite training for years until he could smell an enemy coming or take the wings off a fly with a hand axe, he knew the challenge would be great, and—if he had to admit it, only to himself—he was afraid.
Not of pain, and not of death. Not of the deaths of his comrades, either. No, he feared failing Lucina.
It was easy to give his life for her; much harder to give his life and know it wouldn't save her. Or the world. Only success would do. Was he strong enough for success?
He'd prepared for bed as well as he could: finished polishing his armour, stripped off his boots and cloak and shirt and mask, even laid in the large, canopied bed of the room he'd been provided with for a solid hour before he realized there would be no use. He got up and donned his shirt again, and his mask, because it made him feel more in control. He stood by the window now, watching the stables under the light of the moon. Was Minerva asleep?
Was Lucina?
He wondered if he'd see her in the morning, if he'd get the chance to say goodbye. She'd surely rise to see them off, but that didn't mean he'd get her alone.
Was it fair to tell her he loved her, he wondered. Part of him thought he should, before he left—before he died—and it taunted him as craven. But sometimes, despite himself, he had the inkling that she felt the same way. She looked at him with tenderness. Put a hand on his arm as if to get his attention when she already had it. And if he were slain in Plegia…would it not be better for her to have never known? How often he regretted hearing his parents say that they loved him. It made their deaths so much harder.
He didn't sense the stranger until they were inside his room, standing before the silently-closed door: slim, dark-haired, with a sword through their belt. He crouched fast and reached for his ankle before he remembered he wasn't wearing his boots and had no knife to draw. It was then that he recognized the figure—not because of their stance or the lower half of their face, but because of the mask they wore.
It was one of his.
"What name will you go by?" he asked as he stood.
"Marth, the Hero-King."
The voice was lower and rougher than he remembered. It might fool anyone from the past, but to him, who knew her sex, it sounded almost sultry.
"I pray it never comes to this," he said. "We will return with the gemstones, you will perform the Awakening, and there will be no need for you to travel back into time."
"I know you disagree, Gerome. But if it does become necessary, it's better to take the risk than to let ourselves become overwhelmed."
"There are some risks that aren't worth taking." Like kissing that mouth.
"I disagree." The figure crossed the distance between them slowly, step by step. "Should you not be asleep?"
"I could ask the same of you."
"I had something on my mind."
There was a cockiness to the walk, something Lucina never owned before. Gerome understood. The mask granted it.
"Well?" he asked.
The walk stopped, the chin tilted, the eyes met his through two black screens and empty air. "If the past has taught me anything, it is to never refrain from expressing my love."
"Interesting," he nearly sneered. "It's taught me the opposite."
"You leave me tomorrow."
"What of it?"
"I would have you, first."
That made him take a step back. "No."
"You don't want to?"
"That isn't…" He trailed off; wet his lips. "Lucina, I can't allow this. You're our—"
Exalt, he was supposed to say, but that had been difficult to force out since Chrom's death, for it meant that she was the next greatest target. "Our princess."
"Lucina?" The word was repeated with an edge sharp as Falchion's, and he knew he'd spoken poorly. Why would she be wearing the mask, if she wanted him to say her name? "I am not your princess, I am your king."
"I can't lie with a king. I've only desired one person, and she was a woman."
"And I've only desired one man, but he keeps himself hidden from me."
"So you've done the same," he realized softly. To make it easier on him. On the both of them.
"You must understand. The Hero-King saved the world; his power was limitless. He accomplished everything he set his mind to, and Princess Lucina just watches her loved ones die and sits in her castle. I can't stand being left here like this. Sitting idle while everyone risks their lives without me."
"But it's necessary," he countered. "You carry Exalted blood. You're the only one that can perform the Awakening, so you are the one who must remain in safety."
"So let me do something that I want, before I go back to remaining." The distance was closing between them; he wasn't sure which of them was moving. "Let me show you I care for you. I have nothing now but my kingdom and my blood, and in a few days I might not even have those. Let me have you, at least, before I never can. Or will you deny a king's request?"
He wasn't sure if he was grabbed or he did the grabbing, broken by the new assertiveness in the voice, but soon their lips crashed together, their bodies pressed tight. For a fleeting moment he thought they should remove their masks, but he knew it wouldn't happen. And it was for the best.
Better for them to be Marth and a masked mercenary than Lucina and Gerome. Lucina would have winced through her first time and gotten her hair tangled; Gerome would have blushed like a fool and left bruises on her neck, things for her to remember him by.
Better to be concealed. Better to be silent. Better to pretend that there was no virginity to take, no womb to quicken, no bittersweet memories to haunt them when they parted emptily. Better to take from each other this time instead of giving, instead of looking at the other's bare face, right into their eyes, until they knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that they would never meet again.
Marth pulled him toward the bed, far out of the moonlight.
xXx
In the end, he still didn't sleep.
The figure rose right afterward, tucked loose hair back beneath the collar, left without so much as a goodbye. He sat on the edge of the bed until dawn and regretted.
His mask hid the rings beneath his eyes, and of course his companions didn't find him any surlier than usual when he met them in the great hall, since brooding was an old pastime of his. Lucina was at the door to send them off, face pale but fresh, long hair brushed, voice at just the timbre it always was. She embraced them all, one by one, and spoke words of good luck to them.
She saved him for last. By then the others were exchanging their own goodbyes, giving them an odd moment of privacy in the bustling doorway.
"Gerome," she said.
"Lucina." Her name was almost delicious after the silent night before, but guilt still pooled in his chest.
"You are ashamed."
"Yes."
"As am I."
It hurt to hear her say it. He thought he could live with hiding himself from her, as long as she had what she wanted. But he should have stayed uninvolved, and not gotten so wrapped up in a silly game of pretend. Obviously it only hurt them both all the more when the charade was over. Now she was disappointed that he'd let it happen.
"I wasn't strong enough to be Lucina last night," she said. He looked up in surprise. "I'm ashamed I could not be simply myself with you. You deserve that. When you return, you shall have it."
"Sometimes," he said, "a mask is difficult to bear." He wasn't sure if he was warning Marth or admitting his own weakness, his own desire to rip the cover from his face and let her see. He supposed whether or not he found Vert would determine that. She hugged him tightly around the neck, as she had for all the others.
"Live and return to me. That's an order."
My lady, he might have said, just like all her other subjects and friends, but he couldn't. Not to a king. And not to his dearest friend. So he kissed her naked face and apologized for his cowardice, and if any of the others found that strange, they didn't say a word.
Mere minutes later he was soaring away.