Marcus could have lived a fat, wealthy man for the rest of his life without ever having to work again. Despite the fact that the world was still a pile of shit and was barely even a teetering husk of a society, Marcus received gifts from practically everyone. He got money, favors, food, drinks, furniture, and the closest things to 'vacation homes' that this new world had. You name it, he could have snapped his fingers and it would be at his doorstep within the hour. But Marcus hated being the hero. He hated being the one that everyone looked up to, that everyone believed could save the world. It was the heaviest burden to bear. He felt as though he was physically dragging himself along from the weight of the people's praise and at times he got angry. Dom was a hero. He had driven into a tank of Imulsion to save his brothers in arms. But where were the people to litter his grave with flowers and medals and items of remembrance? Where were the people to proclaim Dom the hero?
In reality, it came down to the remainder of Delta Squad to do that. Marcuse went to see Dom every day, and every once in a while, he'd find letters from Cole tucked neatly under a rock on the headstone for Dom, Cole's way of coping. Or he's find various little tinkered out do-dads from Baird with notes attached like "Could have used this when the truck died in the tunnels," or "Remember that thing you didn't know I was talking about? This is that thing." All of Baird's notes ended with "You're an asshole, Dom." It was Baird's own crude way of saying 'we miss you.' Marcus never left anything. There was nothing to leave that could have spoken the volumes he could never say, nothing to spit the words out that he should have said a thousand times over. So he left nothing at the grave. Just two small worn spots where he always stood, sometimes for over an hour, just staring at the body-less grave, surrounded by thousands like it in the memorial to the dead COG soldiers that were never recovered.
Oddly enough, that was how he reconnected with one part of Delta.
Clayton Carmine was a good brother, a good, doting big brother. Even after his brother's deaths, he cared for them in the only way he could. He kept their rough-cut headstones so clean they almost shone and made sure the flowers were always fresh, that nothing was ever out of place. He was a good older brother. And that was how Marcus found him.
Marcus had been walking through the massive graveyard after his visit to Dom and had seen Carmine caring for his brothers' graves. At first, Marcus wasn't even sure if it was him, but then he heard the unmistakable Carmine voice talking to family that would never return.
"Gotta keep it clean guys, or Mom'll get mad. Remember how she used to get so mad when we didn't clean our rooms?" The young Gear had laughed bitterly, a strange sound coming from the usually ridiculously cheerful man. Marcus had walked up and just stood amazed until Clayton had turned to look at him.
"Sarge?" he had whispered, looking both astonished and terrified at seeing his former superior. "Marcus?"
Marcus simply nodded to the young man. "Carmine."
There were really no words to say. 'How are you,' would have been met, by either party, with a half-hearted lie saying they were okay and anything deeper than that wasn't safe territory to tread on for the brothers in arms. In the end, Carmine wound up blurting out the first thing that seemed to even mildly fit into their current lives.
"Do you need a job?"
It was a simple question, but something about how he said it that made Marcus realize that how he answered would tell Carmine all he needed to know about much more than a possible job hunt. Yes he needed a job, something to throw off his increasingly – terrifyingly – quiet life, something to give him a reason to stop coming to see Dom and stop reminding him why he hated himself. He definitely didn't need the money – hell, none of Delta did – but he did need a job.
And that was how he came to work in a factory making parts for various vehicles. It wasn't a glorious job and it wasn't a clean job, but it was just the kind of job he needed. Working around dangerous equipment meant that he had to keep his mind on what he was doing which meant that he didn't have the opportunity to even think for a moment on anything else but what he was doing. Plus, it was loud and the loudness was a nice break from the suffocating silence of a house he couldn't get rid of no matter how hard he tried. It was even physically exhausting, working heavy machinery all day and moving bulky parts from one machine to the next at a break-neck pace. It made him stay in shape, but also then, by the end of the day he was so tired, he would just collapse into the couch and fall asleep. (Anya had taken the bed and he hadn't stopped her.) It was the perfect job. Clayton was a good brother and a good man. He knew what he was doing.
And so did Marcus. He knew his job was just another form of suicide, just one that would take a long time and one he could look like a decent man doing. There was some part of him, in the dark corners of his mind that seemed increasingly larger as of late, and wondered if Carmine had known that that's what this would be when he offered to get Marcus the job, or if he was still just a little too naïve. But then again, there was another part of his mind that thought that Carmine must have known, but that he understood to some extent, and didn't argue. Losing two brothers in a row must have been hard, and everyone needs their own potential suicides to keep themselves from going totally crazy. Whichever it was, Marcus thanked Carmine in his mind a thousand times over for this job.