Author's note: I've written whole fics from just watching a trailer (Jurassic World, anyone?), but usually when I start a limited-episodes show, I wait until the end to get writing.

This time, not so much. I was sold to this after episode one. I started to get really attached to that big jerk of a moon god after episode two. And episode three had me writing in a flurry.

I have no idea how the whole showdown is going to happen, how many more alters will pop up, but this is what had to get out of my head.

I love that asshole of a bird-skull!

Big, serious apologies for how I probably botched the whole DID representation. So, so sorry!

Don't like, don't flame in the comments, please. Just... don't.

This is simply my early take on events to come. I'm sure I'll be completely disproven by episode number four…

I so blame this on having to quarantine!

So to sum up: written after episode 3!

Posted first on AO3, so there will be an abundance of chapters posted within a day until this catches up..


It was over.

The world had survived. Again.

At a cost. Again.

People had died, on both sides, killed, their lives forever taken from them.

But it was over.

And it had been worth the cost. It would always be worth the cost, because millions upon millions would live to see this day, enjoy it, unjudged by some deranged deity.

Ammit was sealed again.

This realm was safe.

Until next time.


High on adrenaline, endorphins racing through his system, he hadn't felt the discomfort of his abused body. He had fought with everything he had at his disposal, with everything and everyone he was.

So very human without the moon god's suit.

So very fragile.

But still so much stronger than anyone had given him credit for. So unbroken and determined, digging deep. Deeper.

He had lost more than he might ever know.

He had broken down barriers, screamed out his pain, and he had reached into a place that had always been sealed.

Until the cracks had appeared.

Until he had felt his parts die, sacrificed to hopefully end this, to win.

He had felt his battered mind, the broken pieces of what had remained everywhere, and he had longed to crawl into a dark place and just… be.


It was over, but never truly was, was it?


He was so tired. So endlessly tired. He wanted to sleep, but sleep had only ever been a change to another life.

We won, right?

He gazed into the broken mirror. "Yeah," he whispered. "We won."

And we need sleep.

He looked away, then walked out onto the roof terrace


The sun had set over Cairo a while ago, the night sky muddied by the residual light of the city. Even as far as he was from the city center, the light still polluted the night sky. Over twenty-one million people. Just a fraction of the many he… they had saved.

The moon was already out, the light bright and alluring in his eyes, the power behind it everywhere for him to feel.

It was intoxicating. Addictive. He knew what it felt like, that sensation of calling the ceremonial armor, of becoming Moon Knight, and to wield that power. It was a rush, a warmth, a sense of such immense power at his beck and call. It was everything. A connection to the god he had served.

His servitude hadn't been all bad, no. Those moments had been… actually, they had been wonderful in their own way.

And the moment the connection had been severed, his god's presence ripped from his very soul, Marc Spector had felt… nothingness. Not even real pain, just this vast nothingness. He hadn't even been fronting at the time, but despite that, the loss had been almost crippling.

Steven had taken the brunt of that impact. The one he had always tried to shield from their life, from Marc's life, and in the end he had become not only involved but also so very much important.

Closing his eyes, face turned to the moon, Marc listened inward.


He had always been two identities. Marc Spector and Moon Knight. The Knight was never anyone but Marc underneath that mask, empowered by the Moon God himself. He had never been a separate personality. Marc wasn't a backseat rider when the Knight was out on a mission. Marc wore the armor. He made the decisions. He acted and reacted; he killed.

Steven Grant lived another life. A calm life, as a museum employee. A meek, gray and unassuming life. Like an alternate existence. Completely separate, watched by Marc from the shadows of their shared mind.

Steven, the gift shop work, the Brit, the meek little thing who got pushed over by just about everyone. Marc had been the one to take over when the alter's mind weakened through sleep, when his guard had come down. That was when missions were run, when he stole time. Days upon days, sometimes more.

His life had gotten highly complicated with the stronger emergence of Steven Grant, when his mind had started to slide back and forth, their times together meshing into one timeline.

Things had started o spiral out of control.

Especially with alter number three, who neither had been aware of. The vicious protector of the protector, the one with absolutely no regard for life. No conscience, no mercy, just skill and single-mindedness that frightened even the hard-ass ex-soldier.

He refused to think about the very real possibility that this one had served Khonshu, too. Without questions. Relishing in the kill.

No mercy.


Marc had been too wrapped up in the mission to dig any deeper into why the barriers between him and Steven had thinned and finally broken all of a sudden. Why now? Why while fighting to keep Ammit from rising? He had never stopped to ask himself that questions.

He should have.

Maybe he should have listened to Steven's mumblings about ancient mythology.

But he wasn't that guy. He was the weapon, Khonshu's Knight.

Steven…. Steven was the scholar and even while running for his life, terrified beyond belief, thrown into a world he didn't understand but had to learn about on the run, he had started to piece together some things.


Nothing ever came without consequences.


When the dust had settled, when the world was breathing again, when the balance of power had been restored… there were just… the two of them.

Two strong alters.

The survivors.

Because Ammit had been relentless, devouring what was in her path, destroying what she judged as evil, as poisonous.

Marc had only fragmented memories of the fight, as he had alternated between those inside him, each trying to survive, but in the end there had been Steven. Frightened but yet so strong and loyal Steven. Trusting in them to be what it needed to call upon a power that shouldn't have been theirs.

All the pain, the absolute terror, the loss and the suffering, it had forged a bridge, shattered the walls, made them one, and as one they had survived.

They had been the only two.

While Marc couldn't say he had ever met one of the other alters as he had met and interacted with Steven, he also wasn't immune to loss and death.

Parts of him had died.

Sacrificed to Ammit.

For another life. For millions of lives, actually. He had saved the world and lost almost all of himself.


There was a sudden chill down his spine, the whisper of a presence. Sharp, yet without the intent to harm. Powerful, but strangely soft and not unbearably overwhelming.

Marc turned to look at the Egyptian deity looming over him, as frighteningly real as he was surreal. Existing. Yes, he still had a bird's long-beaked skull hovering over the empty socket of a neck. He still wore Egyptian style clothes that moved in a magical wind. He was still wrapped up like a mummy underneath the shendyt-like flaps and stripes, too tall to be human, too sinewy in his moves to be real, and yet… he was very real.

Marc had faced him often enough, had been around the imposing entity, and he had never felt like this, felt Khonshu like this, as when he had shattered the deity's prison. When he had seen the tall figure hunched over, clearly in pain. And he remembered the pain as Khonshu's connection had been ripped from him, when he had heard the other's broken cry of what a human would call pain.

"You…" he whispered harshly. "You are back. Why?"

"I was never gone."

"Right." He rubbed a hand over his chest, the place where the void had been, dark and endless, reminding him that he had truly lost a piece of himself.

And how fucked up was his life that he thought that?

Khonshu regarded him from those hollow sockets, but there was something deep in there. Deep inside and alive, more alive than he had ever felt.

It was the same assessing look the moon god had given him those many years ago, when he was on the threshold between life and death.

When he had been given the choice.

Back then, Khonshu had been this terrifying, overwhelming entity, this endless power in a void that was about to swallow Marc whole. He had been the necessary evil to live, to continue having an existence.

Time had passed since then.

Marc's perception of him had changed gradually. It had done a complete one-eighty throughout his hunt for Ammit's tomb all of a sudden. It had rearranged itself and Marc had been given an insight into Khonshu that no one else had probably ever had.

Except maybe another one of his god buddies. Maybe not even them.

It didn't make him less of an asshole, but now he was an asshole Marc was getting a better read on, which was tell-tale all on its own. He was getting better at reading an other-dimensional entity, go figure!

"You came for me," the god stated and he sounded… mystified. "You freed me from eternal imprisonment."

He snorted. "You told Steven to tell me to do so."

The skull cocked a little and while there was no human facial expression, Marc could read something. Something… almost human. Like surprise.

"He actually told you."

"Yeah. He did."

"I thought you would be glad to be free. Both of you."

"Free." Marc turned that word over in his mouth. "Free? But I am not, am I? I never was and I never will be."

Because even as Khonshu had been sealed in stone, his power taken from his avatar, Marc had still felt it. The moon was still deep inside his splintered soul and Steven had sensed it just as strongly.

He glanced at where Layla had stepped out onto the roof terrace of their little hideaway. A place to lay low until things had blown over. His wife. Khonshu's chosen next avatar.

The god chuckled. "That is your perception, Marc Spector."

"You chose me," Marc said, meeting the hollow gaze. "You broke me!"

-"I'm curious. Do you think Khonshu chose you as his avatar because your mind would be so easy to break or because it was broken already?"-

Harrow's soft, so falsely compassionate words echoed through his head. He shook off the memory that was actually Steven's and that was so ever-present because how much they had meshed together.

"You are not and never were broken, Marc Spector."

Khonshu regarded him with a sudden calmness that had never surrounded him before. There had always been this looming darkness, that storm about to break lose. Impatience coupled with an age-old anger and that always-present urgency.

Now there was something else.

Something had changed.

And it sat heavily between them.

He was still the same old, blandly colored deity. No colors to him but the sand. The browns. No embellishments aside from the crescent moon on his chest, the scarab belt adornment and the Usekh collar peaking out from underneath the tattered linen. Still looking like the outcast, he mused. Still the shamed god. He had seen the rich representations of the Ennead in the council chamber, had caught a hint of what they were, and Khonshu… was no that. Even his avatar was… tattered, cast out, down on his luck…

"Your mind fractured under a pressure I didn't impose on it, but it never broke. Hairline fractures. Small cracks only. You were strong enough to survive before I found you, the damage already done. A damage nothing could undo, though Ammit did try." Khonshu sounded viciously disgusted. "She took what she could, what wasn't strong enough."

-"The justice of Ammit surveys the whole of our lives. Past, present, future. She knows what we've done, and what we will do."—

Getting rid of that voice would prove harder than anything else, he mused darkly. Because Harrow wasn't part of him; he was an invasion, a parasite, and he had gotten to a part of Marc Spector. To Steven.

But Ammit hadn't taken him. She had devoured everyone else, but the strongest had survived. Those balancing the scales inside Marc Spector's soul.

Marc's hands clenched into fists and his mind flashed back to the all-deciding battle with Ammit, with Harrow. The outcome had been death. Carnage, blood-shed and death. Too much of him had died and he only knew because of those wisps that remained behind. He had died over and over, each alter fading until only two remained, fighting to stay alive against a barrage of cold, ruthless judgment that wanted to drown them, too. Wanted their lives.

Instead they had come out stronger.

And he could feel the moon's powers, even now. Marc's eyes strayed to the crescent shape, the power heady and calling to him.

"What about Harrow?" he demanded, tearing his gaze away. "He claimed you broke him. Abused him. Abused his trust, his devotion."

"He was different. At the time he seemed like a good choice. He enjoyed the pain." Khonshu shrugged. "A lot. He was vengeance, yes, but he lusted for the kill. His mind was an easy gate into this world, seemed to perfect, so receptive, but he was never perfect. He betrayed me. His devotion was one of lies and personal gain. He was… the wrong choice."

Spector studied the tall figure, brow furrowing. Inside he felt the same curiosity rise, mirrored from his other half. Steven was listening. He was on the back seat, but he was actively listening in. Taking notes; noticing things. Like Khonshu confessing to making a mistake? That one was rather… new.

"He would have left you there, in that prison. Actually, he did," the mercenary stated coolly. "Perfectly orchestrated by a psychopath." He spread his arms. "Like me, right?"

"You came for me," Khonshu repeated in that dark, slightly raspy voice. "Without powers, without the armor, without me. You came and you prevailed, against overwhelming odds. Against Ammit's followers and her. You felt the moon despite my absence. The strength of our connection astounds me." He leaned closer. "You astound me, Marc Spector."

"Well, fuck off," Marc snarled.

"You chose me. Voluntarily."

He clenched his hands into fists. He had, hadn't he? Without coercion, without pressure. He had made his choice. He could have stood back, let everything go to hell, safe from Ammit because his soul was balanced chaos, but he hadn't.

He had chosen Khonshu.

He had chosen the sacrifice of everything of himself.

"It's over. I made a spectacularly bad decision back there!" Marc rasped.

"To save humanity?"

His narrow-eyed glare seemed to entertain the god even more. "To save you, you bird-brained jackass! Should have left you to rot in that stone!"

"I am immortal, Marc. I do not rot."

"Fuck off," he repeated, but with less heat.

He scrubbed a hand over his face, feeling so tired, so exhausted right to his last cell. And yet, the power of the moon was pulsing through him. It had healed his body, had soothed his overtaxed mind, and it would always keep him in perfect shape, but he so very much wanted to give in and let someone else take over. Anyone else.

Strangely enough, Steven was a quiet presence. Simply listening.

"You called upon me, Marc Spector. You reached out for me. You wanted me. I am back. So why would I do that now? Fuck off?" Khonshu was projecting laughter, but he was also incredibly curious and so very, very present. Almost oppressively so. "Harrow was a suitable avatar, but nothing else. You were always more. You were perfect. You still are," Khonshu rumbled. "Inside, you are what I need." His bandaged finger almost tapped against Marc's forehead. "You are vengeance and you are passion. You are the warrior and the… scholar."

The idiot, Steven muttered distastefully.

Marc smirked at the remark. It was the first thing he had said ever since coming back to the safehouse to lick their wounds, regroup, do whatever. Actually, now that it was over, Marc had had no idea what to do.

"You embody the knowledge of my world and the skill of a warrior of yours. You are the first avatar to be everything."

Not that it got us any thanks, Steven argued. He called me useless.

Well, yes. Marc was the hard-as-nails mercenary, ex-Marine, ex-CIA, the killer, the warrior. He was the Moon Knight. Steven was… the other half. The other side. The alter.

Khonshu's gaze turned to rest on Layla. "And while she is the one to succeed you should you one day fail, I believe we have a long time of a very… interesting partnership ahead of us, Marc Spector and Steven Grant."

"What makes you think I'll just invite you back in?" Marc spat. "You interfering little…"

It got him a rough chuckle. "I never left, Marc."