Alright, the fandom got me. Badly. I'm writing while on vacation, with sometimes only my hotspot for internet access...
After Tightrope I wasn't sure there was more to come, but now I've started on smaller pieces. And yes, this stayed small! I'm so proud of myself. More to come, because I'm also in a serious h/c mode.
This is now officially a series...
If you read this and haven't read Tightrope, you'll be horribly confused!
This is a canon divergence from canon! Tightrope was started after episode 3 and has seriously veered off canon course!
Steven stood in front of the raised relief sculpture, running an appreciative eye over the detailed work of a long dead Egyptian sculpturer and artist. It had been perfectly restored in painstaking detail and he had talked to the conservators at length, getting all the facts.
Yazmin, who had been the lead on this project, had been only too happy to tell him all about where the relief had been found, how long it had been in the museum's basement, how they had worked out how to restore the details and stay true to the original nature of this priceless relic of a time long gone.
"This detail is amazing," he murmured. "So intricate and lifelike!"
There was no one around. Actually, there was no one in the whole hall and most of it was cast in twilight since the visiting hours were already over. Aside from him, a few cleaners and maybe one or two workers from another floor, no one was around. Guards did their rounds, but they knew all the night workers.
Perks, he called it. Perks of working as a trusted and valued volunteer and getting to see all this fascinating, immeasurable work away from the general public. He wasn't in one of the official galleries either. This was where conservators worked on preserving and restoring all those wonderful pieces.
Steven felt like a kid in a candy store.
His current object of admiration was a colorful, ten feet high relief, depicting none other than Ammit in all her glory. The coloring was so vivid!
He didn't have very clear memories of their final battle against the goddess, mainly because it had been Jake who had faced her. Their ultimate protector, the one who had given his soul to keep Marc and Steven safe, who had given them a fighting chance to get Khonshu and prevent Ammit's rise to power.
Maybe, if he could remember, he might not be so appreciative of the artwork. Maybe he would see a deranged lunatic and not priceless art.
There was a whisper of a presence and he caught sight of Khonshu behind him. While the god of the moon had no facial features aside from unmoving bone, he clearly did scowl. Steven knew it, could see it.
"She looks marvelous, doesn't she?" he addressed the deity, the excitement in his voice unmasked.
There was a spike of annoyance and Steven suppressed a grin.
"So do you," he added with a laugh audible in the words.
"I do not need to be complimented," the entity growled.
"Hm. Everyone likes a compliment now and then. I'm sure they have one of your statues or a painting here somewhere."
Another grunt.
"Harrow kind of did us a favor, hm?" he said softly after a long moment of just looking at Ammit.
The deity huffed, the rags around him moving restlessly in the magical eddies. There was another spike and Steven knew it was more than annoyance. It was a still present anger, burning low but continuously, and it was something Khonshu wouldn't be able to drop any time soon.
He could hold a grudge like a pro. His whole messed-up relationship with the members of the Ennead was proof of it.
But the whole experience with Harrow was still too fresh. Everything was too fresh, despite almost eighteen months gone by. Khonshu was dealing with the near-loss of not just his freedom but also his avatar in a different way. Just like his avatar was dealing with the changes to his life.
And yet, so much good had come out of all the pain and suffering. Steven would be the first to admit how freakishly otherworldly his normal, boring life had become. How terrified he had been all the time, how out of his comfort zone. So very much outside it.
Today he was here, feeling so much better, so much more whole and complete.
"A bloody big favor," Steven went on. "We wouldn't be here today if not for him, now would we?"
This time the emotional response was quite clear. One of the changes to their partnership, the soul bond, and something Steven had never been able to feel so clearly until then. Marc was the avatar and he had always been the one in direct contact with the deity. Since achieving their balance, opening up to the bond, and actually accepting it and Khonshu, Steven was getting the unfiltered version of Khonshu. It was no longer muted; he was an equal.
"You know I'm right, don't you?" he continued. "Marc was at the end of his emotional rope. I had no clue what was going on. All you did was terrorize me and push-push-push at Marc. We were easy prey."
He shuddered. Memories of Harrow were usually unwanted and gave him the creeps.
Khonshu's psychic presence increased, wrapping around his mind like a shield, and Steven smiled warmly at the entity. A god who had been his night terror and who was now someone he and Marc cared deeply about.
"Yes, mistakes were made," he said softly. "But Harrow made the biggest. He underestimated Marc's loyalty to you."
Khonshu tilted his head.
"And by trying to force me apart from Marc, trying to manipulate me, he made us stronger. He lied to me. He lied to Marc."
"You didn't break," the moon god whispered, sounding proud. More emotions swung in those words and Steven understood them.
"We didn't break," he agreed. "We fractured, but we came back stronger. We lost a lot, both of us, and so did you. Still we won." He shot him a brief little smile. "We got you back. For good. And because we chose you, because Marc wanted you back so badly that he almost tore himself apart, we healed. That's what Harrow did for us."
Khonshu was right next to him, the ragged edges of his cape brushing over Steven's skin.
"If he had left Marc alone⦠he might have won. Because we wouldn't have gotten our stuff together and cooperated instead of bloody fighting over control. You might have pushed too hard, but Harrow kicked Marc over the edge."
"It will not happen again."
No, it wouldn't. Too much had happened, too much had changed, and too much couldn't be reversed. Not that Steven wanted to reverse any of those positive changes. Neither did Marc, who was as possessive of their god as the god was of his avatar.
"It won't," he said out loud, eyes on the relief again.
"You do not owe Harrow a single thing," Khonshu added darkly.
Steven raised his eyebrows. "I can only repeat: we do. In his own twisted way, he gave us what we needed to survive and heal, become what we are, be stronger. He didn't know it, sure, but he was the initiator."
Khonshu huffed, annoyance surging again.
He didn't like owing his former avatar anything, Steven realized from the complicated array of emotions he caught faintly at the edge of his perception. Marc was a lot better reading their soul-bound god, but Steven had gotten the hang of it.
Arthur Harrow had been Khonshu's one and only bad choice. Maybe there had been others who had turned out to be unsuitable to bear the Moon Knight armor, but Harrow had not only been unsuitable, he had turned out to be quite bonkers. Steven didn't think his service to Khonshu had turned the bloke into such a psychotic mess. He had been that before the moon god had chosen him.
What would have happened to Marc if Khonshu had set him free before he had come to terms with everything he had been, was and would be? What if the imbalance had damaged Marc?
He shivered.
There was a warm embrace and he closed his eyes, a surprised exhalation leaving his lips. Khonshu's presence was at his back and it felt like he could just lean back and collapse against the taller form. An insubstantial caress feathered over his neck.
"I would never have let my perfect avatar go," Khonshu promised, low and almost sinister dark. "I cannot. Marc was and still is mine. So are you. Harrow was nothing like it."
One day he would ask. One day he would hopefully get a deeper look into what had happened between them. The curiosity was there, but Steven understood there was a lot of pain and even more bad memories involved for the immortal entity.
"And maybe he did help," Khonshu suddenly agreed, voice holding a curious undercurrent. "Without knowing what he was doing, misguided soul he was."
Steven shot him a surprised look. He had never dared ask where Harrow had ended up, in the Duat, in some kind of other hell, eternal punishment or frozen in sand, to be tormented by other souls, or if he had simply been erased.
Khosnhu's endless gaze had him shiver a little, but not in fright or unease. It was such a knowing look, so clearly readable despite the bony skull that had no facial expressions a human might be able to read. But like Marc, Steven had been quick to pick up on the tiny shifts, the way the energy around the eternal being was tell-tale, how it trickled along the soul bond.
"But you do not have to be thankful to him," the god added darkly.
"Well, he is not on my Merry Christmas shopping list," Steven answered with a smile.
He ran a last eye over the relief of Ammit, trying to scrounge up a single image of what she had been like in real life, what Jake had confronted and perished defending them from. There was nothing.
He decided it wasn't important.
"It isn't," the god next to him rumbled.
"Only that we survived?"
"Yes."
"I can still appreciate such splendid work of a society that has been long gone."
Khonshu harrumphed.
"I'll ask Yazmin if they have one of you the next time," he teased gently.
"I do not care about brittle stone and decaying colors."
Oh, but he did, Steven knew. While the other gods had left because humankind no longer worshipped them, had abandoned the gods in the gods' eyes, Khonshu had always been there. And he liked to be complimented like any other being.
He smiled as Khonshu looked at him, the bond reflecting everything that was left unsaid. The warmth between them was real.
His stomach suddenly rumbled and Steven laughed, shaking his head as the deity snorted.
"I suppose that means I should go eat, huh?"
"Probably," the deity agreed, humor swinging in the word.
Steven headed out, logging off, though it didn't matter what time he worked since he wasn't getting paid. He grabbed a box of his favorite vegan noodle dish from the 24/7 restaurant's take-out window, then settled at the near-by fountain, enjoying the cool night. People were still about, some just going for a drink, others heading to or from work. It was just past eight-thirty in the evening and he would have spent more time in the amazing basement treasure trove, but Marc had a date.
Yes, with Layla. And no, not a date-date. They were going after some scumbag. It might count as a date for Moon Knight, thought, he thought with a grin. Layla sure enjoyed their times together.
He caught sight of Khonshu perching on a building not too far away, like some otherworldly gargoyle, ever-present, ever vigilant. There was a low thrum of excitement coming from him at the thought of hunting criminals.
Steven smiled. An empathic wave touched him, far away and yet so close and warm.
When he looked up the next time, Khonshu was gone, but Steven knew he was still around.
It had been a fun late afternoon and early evening. The museum didn't expect him back for the rest of the week and Steven knew it was enough time for the Moon Knight to follow up on their latest target.
Time to go home.
