Even though the news has circulated amongst the Guardian population that Crow is very much off limits and not to be harmed ('sucking up to the Vanguard 'cause he's scared' he'd heard one Guardian mutter as they passed him in the Tower. 'Sucking them off, more like,' he'd heard added by their companion), he still prefers to stay out of the way. It's just easier that way. No sense in antagonising people when he doesn't have to. He manages to do it often enough as it is.
There's a spot in the Tower overlooking the city that he's taken to spending time at when he's not at the HELM or away on a mission. It's tucked away, hidden by pipes and overhangs, and a little tricky to get to if you don't know exactly how. But the view is beautiful, especially at night, the Last City laid out below, with lights glittering like stars. It feels so much more real than his second-hand memories of the Dreaming City or the Distributary.
Today there is someone waiting for him in his spot when he brings his lunch there. He doesn't recognise them at first. They're leaning against the railing, looking out over the city, wearing a loose rust coloured tunic.
They turn when he approaches, and Crow sucks in a breath.
"Osiris."
The warlock – ex-warlock? – straightens up and nods to him. "I thought it was about time that you and I spoke."
Crow's stomach knots at those words. Even though he is more sure of his place here, or at least working with the Vanguard, it still feels… tenuous, especially after what he'd done to Saladin. And with Osiris awake… Crow knows that in the end, he is only here because Savathun had wanted him here. Osiris had never vouched for him, not really, it had all been the Witch Queen. So where does that leave him?
"I suppose so," he agrees anyway.
"You've been avoiding it," Osiris says, and Crow looks away, awkward.
He has been avoiding it. Avoiding the hospital when he knew Osiris was receiving visitors, avoided the apartment where Saint and Osiris lived. Avoiding Saint so he couldn't be invited.
"I didn't want to intrude," he says. "You have a lot of friends who wanted to see you, and it seemed odd to demand that you meet a stranger."
No matter that he feels like he should know Osiris, it had all been deception. He can't trust anything that had happened during that time. Any kindness that Osiris had shown him were just the manipulations of a Hive god.
Osiris looks at him as though he can read every thought that is going on in Crow's head. At least some things haven't changed.
The warlock just smiles though, an enigmatic expression, and leans against the railing once more.
Crow joins him. Might as well face this now, rather than waiting for the axe to fall, whether it be Osiris telling him he has no interest in Crow, or the Vanguard sending him away as one of Savathun's tricks or traps. (Where would he go? There's plenty of space out there. Or he could go to her. Would she take him in, even if he isn't what she wants? Even if he doesn't think he wants to be what she wants from him?)
Crow takes a moment to study Osiris's face, as he stares down at the city far below. He had thought that he knew what Osiris looked like. He had spent enough time with the man after all, looked forward to his visits, or at least when he'd thought it was Osiris. A face is just a face, right?
But it's almost like looking at a stranger, like when you see a friend in the street and call out to them only to find it's someone you've never met. (Like looking at an image of Uldren Sov. He wonders if this is how Mara feels when she looks at him.)
Osiris's face is marked with deep lines of care and exhaustion, the centuries weighing down on him. But there are just as many lines of laughter and joy there that Crow doesn't remember, kindness and wisdom where before there had just been razor keen intellect.
"Do I pass your inspection?" Osiris says, without looking at him. There's a smile on his lips, amused, but there's no cruelty in it.
"Sorry," Crow says and looks away quickly, staring down at the distant ground.
Osiris snorts. "I've done the same in the mirror a lot since I woke up. Saint will start complaining that I've become vain."
"I think he'll probably just be grateful that you're awake," Crow replies. He'd seen how many hours Saint had spent sitting at Osiris's bedside, holding his hand, waiting for an awakening that no-one had been sure would come.
"He is far too forgiving of me," Osiris says, "and I am very glad of that."
Crow thinks it must be nice, knowing that someone desperately wants you to live, wants you to survive. Had anyone wanted that for Uldren? Would anyone want that for him?
Glint, tucked away in his light, sends a brief burst that is rebuke and reassurance all at once.
Well, one person wants that for him at least.
"It is strange, isn't it?" Osiris says, not looking at him, still looking down at the city. "Looking at the face in the mirror, your own face, and knowing that someone with that face did terrible things."
Crow swallows. He does know. Even before Savathûn had given him Uldren's memories, he had seen his own reflection and wondered what about it made people despise him enough to want him dead.
"You were possessed," he says. "It wasn't you who did those things." Not like him. Not like Uldren.
The warlock turns a little, raises an eyebrow. "There are some who would argue with that. Who would question my motives, or the truth of what happened." He gives a soft huff of humourless laughter. "There are plenty who already considered me a traitor long before the Witch Queen ever encountered me."
That seems so strange to him, when he'd seen how easily people had trusted Savathûn impersonating him. How quickly they had taken the false Osiris into their confidence. Was that a testament to Savathûn's skills at manipulation? Or was Osiris overestimating people's dislike of him? Or both?
Not that Crow has any way of judging, not really when this is his first time meeting Osiris for real.
"Seems to be a pattern there," Crow replies unthinkingly, bitterness seeping into his voice. His brain catches up with the words and he blanches. "I mean- I'm-"
Osiris laughs. It's a nice laugh, Crow thinks, startled at hearing it. Had he heard Osiris laugh before? And even if he had, would it not have been tainted by Savathûn's cruelty? But Osiris's laugh is warm, amused, fond in a way that makes Crow ache.
"The Last City, for all its brave ideals, can be unwelcoming to those it considers exiles and outsiders," Osiris says. "It contains some of the bravest and best people I have ever met, but it is far from immune to pettiness and cruelty."
"I don't want to seem ungrateful," Crow says honestly. He may feel more secure here now, but there are days when it feels like that security is thin as tissue paper against a hurricane. He isn't sure he will ever stop waiting for that welcome to be rescinded.
"You should not have to perform gratitude for scraps," Osiris says, a harsh note entering his voice.
Crow flinches at the tone, breath coming sharp for a moment, memory of displeasure leading to punishment too deeply ingrained to escape, even now. Even here. Osiris (not Osiris, Savathûn, but the same face, the same voice) and his anger that Crow had been seen, been recognised…and the memory of worse punishments at other hands.
There is a hand on his shoulder, Osiris's, much lighter than he remembers, as though the Witch Queen had added weight to his form, or had stolen it away when she left him in the shattered fragments of her crystal prison.
The warlock searches his face, gaze piercing still, but in a way that no longer makes Crow feel as though he's being stripped bare, his worth weighed and measured. Osiris sighs and releases him, and leans against the railing again.
"I am not upset with you," Osiris says carefully, before those insidious thoughts, the fear of disappointment, can worm themselves too deeply into his mind. "If anything, it is you who should be angry at me."
Crow blinks, confused. "You haven't done anything wrong. Not to me at least."
"And how many Guardians have inflicted their anger on you for the actions of a dead man?" is the warlock's wry response.
"That's different," Crow says. "Uldren is- was-" A monster. A murderer.
"If you are to be held responsible for the actions of a previous life, then so must we all," Osiris says. "And there are undoubtedly some who would have much to be held responsible for."
Crow feels like he should protest. Does he not remember every horror that Uldren Sov committed as though it were him? And those actions are still felt. How can a scant few years compare to the centuries that lie between most Guardians and their first lives? But Osiris' tone brooks no arguments, and, perhaps guiltily, there is something pleasing about hearing it.
"It doesn't matter anyway," Crow says instead. "Even if it had been you and not her, you saved me. I would never have ended up here if not for the Osiris I knew. I'd still have been on the Shore working for Spider." And no matter some of the problems here, the whispers and occasional beating or death at the hands of wrathful Guardians, it is still so much better than his life under Spider's heel.
Osiris doesn't smile though. If anything, he looks a step away from fury, his lips pressed together in a tight line.
What had he said wrong?
"As I said," Osiris begins, "you should not have to be grateful for scraps."
"I don't understand." He has found a home here, and freedom. Glint is safely tucked away in his light, unburdened by Spider's threats. He has enough food, and clothes and-
"The Witch left you with that slaver," Osiris spits the word, "She knew the abuses he inflicted upon you, and she left you in his hands for the sake of convenience."
Crow stares, feels the blood draining from his face. "No- no that's not-"
"She had you hide away in the HELM, sleeping in a corner instead of find you quarters, and treated appropriate clothing as the finest gifts rather the basics that anyone deserves. She kept you isolated to prevent you forming bonds with anyone who might shake her control of you," Osiris continues, his voice cracking with anger and hurt. "And she did it with my face and my voice."
The world tilts, actions that he had never considered shaken loose to reveal new angles. His chest tightens, breath trapped and choking him. He feels the brush of concern from Glint and clings fiercely to that feeling, the one constant since his rebirth. New context turns kindness to control, no less cruel, but a hundred times more insidious than the methods Spider had used upon him.
It hurts. It shouldn't hurt, knowing that the Hive God of Lies had manipulated him in such a way. But it does. Feels like he's lost something. A relationship that had never been real.
"It hurts you to be held responsible for the actions of your predecessor," Osiris says, in what passes for gentleness from him.
Crow nods, still reeling, his throat too dry to think of speaking yet.
"It hurts me greatly - and infuriates me - to know that people might believe I would inflict such indignities upon someone." Osiris's expression when Crow meets his eyes is weary, sad. It is an expression that he knows Savathûn had never worn. "I only hope that it is a matter of her hiding information from the Vanguard and from- from those I hold dear, and not that they truly think I would leave someone in slavery for the sake of my own knowledge, rather than burn Spider's base down around him."
Crow remembers Saint's kindness, and Zavala's trust, and Ikora's careful support, about the Guardian's friendship. Could they have known what happened to him? Could they have known about the bruises and blood and beatings, the acts required of him while under Spider's control, and just… ignored it? Deemed him unworthy of help without the patronage of someone like Osiris?
He remembers Zavala's shock at seeing him after the failed assassination, and Saint's attempts to keep him fed. Remembers Ikora's trust and unquestioning willingness to reassign him away from the Dreaming City. Remembers drinking with the Guardian, their camaraderie, their concern about bruises and limps during hunts.
It could drive him mad, trying to find dark motives and deceit behind every smile. And he thinks that might be what Savathûn would want.
"I don't think they knew," he says finally. "If she's even half as smart as she's supposed to be, she should know that they would never accept that."
"Hmph. I have found that cruel people, the self-serving and evil, are often incapable of understanding that other people are not as cruel and self-serving as they are." Osiris takes a heavy breath. "Still, I hope that you are correct. And also why I feel I must offer my apologies for the cruelties inflicted upon you, as though they were my own actions."
Crow opens his mouth to object - it wasn't Osiris! It had never been Osiris who had treated him that way - but he pauses for a moment. He thinks he might understand, a little, the necessity of the apology.
"I- I accept," Crow says, and it feels inadequate. What are you supposed to say in this situation? "Thank you."
It feels like something eases inside him. He thinks it might ease something in Osiris too because the Warlock gives a small smile.
"As for the rest of what I wished to say," Osiris begins, "I do not remember everything that occurred, and much of what I do recall is doubtless distorted by the lens through which Savathûn allowed me to view it. But I do remember your competence and skill, and though I was not responsible for bringing you to the Tower, you have my support in any way I can grant it." He gives another of those self-depreciating laughs. "Although you may find that one thing the Witch Queen did get correct was my skills as a mentor."
"I appreciated the mentorship," Crow admits, although he does think he'll have to examine that more closely with the context Osiris has given him.
Osiris snorts. "You should speak to Ikora before you say such things. I don't doubt she would be able to dissuade you of that notion. And Saint may be correct that I am perhaps… too exacting and more brusque than might be ideal."
It sounds like an admission that is being dragged out of him.
"Saint has always spoken highly of you," Crow says. "He can't find it too off-putting."
"He has always had enough charm for both of us, as he enjoys reminding me," Osiris says. He sounds so utterly fond, so besotted, that Crow wonders how anyone could have believed Savathûn's coldness towards Saint.
But Crow also hears in those words the massive gulf between the truth, and what he had thought he knew.
"He has been very welcoming to me," Crow says. "I'm grateful to him." Someone who didn't know Uldren Sov, and wouldn't have cared anyway. Crow had needed that.
"He's a good man," Osiris says. "And he did say that I should invite you to dinner," he adds.
"Oh, I-"
"He will be very disappointed if you refuse," Osiris says. "You wouldn't want to disappoint him, would you?"
Crow thinks he's teasing. Probably? He also finds the thought of Saint being disappointed distressing. Hasn't the Titan been through enough distress recently? He'll probably never shake the memory of how dejected Saint had seemed that day they'd first met in the hangar, after Osiris… Savathûn… had been so cold to him.
"How can I refuse?" Crow says. "I'd like that." And that's true. It sounds like being welcomed, and he thinks he would like to get to know the real Osiris better.
"Then it's settled. Come along," Osiris says, straightening up. He stretches, and Crow can see him wince, though he tries to hide it.
"What, now?"
"Of course," Osiris says. "I don't intend to give your doubts opportunity to keep you avoiding us."
He brushes past Crow as though everything is entirely settled and Crow can't possibly refuse. Which he can't actually. Somehow he's certain that Osiris will have a counter for any excuse that he could give.
Osiris pauses, turns back to look at him. "Well?"
Crow finds himself smiling. "I'm coming."
Osiris nods, and Crow follows him out of that lonely hidden spot.