PALADIN

THE man tosses out an easy you’re all right, and something warm pools in the pit of Marc’s stomach--a reminder that maybe he’s not as far removed from being a normal human being as he likes to think he is a lot of the time. His mind is blessedly clear at the moment, Khonshu either trusts him to take care of a situation where so many humans are involved or doesn’t care, and his other personalities feel--as under control as they could hope to be. He can relax, at least a fraction. “The Marines, for about three years. Stationed in Africa and South America.” He shrugs his shoulders, matches his companion’s grin with one of his own. He starts talking about haggling with the owner of the fish market and Marc can’t help but laugh, it reminds him of the better parts of figuring out life in a new country whenever he was stationed somewhere else. 

“Hell if I know man, that’s how I ended up eating terrible knock off caviar and getting sick into Port Said. I just usually trust that someone knows better than I do--unless it’s like, beef borsht or challah bread--my old man would have kicked my ass if I couldn’t tell a decent loaf of challah bread.” 

MARC follows the eyes of the last of this particular set of arms dealers, watches them move from the unconscious and wounded bodies on the floor up to where Marc is holding three moon darts between his fingers. “Who are you supposed to be?” He exhales, though it does nothing to stop the gun in his hand from shaking. 

“The one you see coming.” 

He throws the darts into the wall and reaches for his staff on his belt, hits the guy on the side of the head and sends him careening to the floor, the gun skittering off in the opposite direction. He’s aware of a wooshing sound coming through the broken window as he starts patting down the newly unconscious dealer’s pockets, looking for a phone--the likely place for some kind of messages of meeting places, or even a sales record. “If you’re looking for a fight, you just missed it.” He says without looking up from his task. “Unless you’re looking for a fight with me, in which case you’re in luck.” 

IT’S difficult for Marc to say that he really belongs anywhere--he was born and raised in Chicago, but after spending the majority of his younger years in the hospital and coupled with the death of his father, he doesn’t hold any special affection for it. The Marines had kept him stationed in plenty of exotic locations, but violence and his own mental instability had tainted those in different ways--it wasn’t until he had taken that job for Bushman in the Egyptian desert that he had really fallen in love with a particular location. Maybe it was Khonshu’s influence, a longing for his temple and the source of his power, maybe it was just nostalgia for the moments before he found out what Bushman wanted--but he thinks if circumstances were different, he’d go back there before anywhere else. 

For now he’s trapped with the rest of New York City, and he has to take what comfort he can in other sources--which include this small restaurant, inherited by a kind young woman from her grandmother, a Cairo native. She claims that she opens early in order to get a head start on the days recipes, but Marc is sure that it’s because he will appear after a long night on the street and order bed bel basturma, and do his best not to fall asleep with his head on the table (he fails more often than not). Today as he walks in, his black hoodie drawn up and shadows swept underneath his eyes, he finds he’s not alone--a young man sits alone at a table, his eyes unfocused on the quiet street outside the window. 

He orders in what he thinks is pretty decent Arabic and approaches slowly, tries to smile warmly. “Late night or early morning?” 

DOOM making his list public has made the streets even more chaotic than when they were just crawling with demons--human beings looking to take matters into their own hands have increased exponentially, and people looking to give them the tools to be incredibly stupid are having a field day. This warehouse that Marc has just finished cleaning out is only one point in a ring of arms dealers--he had taken particular care to leave no one who could tell the others he would be coming for them eventually, but the more he investigates and the more information he steals off their computer set up, the more he thinks that the damage is already being done. He kicks at the glass he had shattered and huffs, retrieves a moon dart from where it’s lodged in the shoulder of a nameless thug and exits the building. 

He ducks into a nearby alleyway and lets out a wince, rotating his shoulder. Of course most of the fighting had taken place in the basement of the warehouse, where there was no visible moonlight to give Marc any extra power in his fighting--leaving him more bruised and battered than he normally would be. He takes an extra second to stand in the light now and inhales slowly--only to open his eyes to see someone approaching him, already speaking. He catches just enough to throw him off guard. “I’m sorry, did you just ask me if I was from hell? Like--literal hell? That’s one opening line I guess.” 

“I’M afraid I may be a difficult case, even for yourself.” Marc says slowly, finally meets the eyes of Jean Grey, who has been patiently sitting across from him. His father’s Star of David necklace sits in the pocket of his jacket--he’s been running his fingers intermittently over the points in an effort to put himself at some sort of ease, a form of armor in the absence of any of his other personalities or Khonshu--but at the moment it’s doing very little. It’s not like he meant to put off finding a decent professional for this long--but after spending his teenage years confined to the hospital in Chicago he’s been--soured on the practice, and it’s impossible to account for variables like the presence of Khonshu, or what is or isn't going to make its way back to Doom--so it’s been easier to just, live with it. 

He’s hoping that this is something different, that a telepath won't question the presence of something as foreign as the moon god in his mind--and that’s not to mention the fact that he’s put some of the strongest psychically powered people out of commission for days at a time--she could tell him that there’s nothing to be done, or gained. “I’ve been inside of my mindscape before--it’s constantly shifting, due to my dissociative identity disorder, and the presence of Khonshu--” He sighs and worries his bottom lip between his teeth. “It’s dangerous terrain for telepaths to cross, but I have no idea if the stress of being on a different--wherever we are, is going to worsen it.” 

IT’S difficult for Marc to reconcile the facts of his life as they stand currently with the religion of his youth, with the religion his father had devoted his own life to. He’s killed people, he acts as the host of an ancient god of vengeance--he made peace a long time ago with the fact that if the heaven his father believed in existed, he was always going to be pretty far from it--but that doesn’t mean that he can escape the impact it’s had on his life. There’s something about being inside of the synagogue that calms all of the voices inside of him, at least for a moment, and reminds him of being young and a captive audience while his father practiced his weekly sermons--when things were simple and he was singular. The rabbi is an older man with kind eyes that never questions when Marc appears at odd hours of the day or night, just tells him gently that he looks like he could benefit from attending a service and to turn off the lights when he’s finished. In return, Moon Knight always makes sure that it and the streets around it are free from demons, it feels like the least he can do. 

He exits the synagogue in the fading light of day, draws his hood up and tries to focus to receive any instruction that Khonshu might have for him. His process is interrupted when he hears the telltale half whining half growling noise of demons--two of them being pursued by a young woman with glowing red eyes and hands. They have their backs turned towards him, not intelligent enough to avoid being backed into corners, which gives him the opportunity to slip the moon darts he keeps tucked into his boots into his hand and drive one into the back of each. They go tumbling towards the ground, but the young woman doesn’t let up whatever her power is. “Not a demon,” He says quickly, retrieves the darts and holds up his hands. The pieces start to click into place in his mind, and he knows where he’s seen her before. “I’m also impervious to a lot of magic, so it might not be effective to attack me.” 

THERE are times when the amount of noise in his head can feel overwhelming, where it feels like the solid outlines of his body and the things that constitute him as a human being feel like lines of television static. When he was younger, and when he couldn’t escape the images of those Neo-Nazi’s beating his father, he used to hide away and just lose himself in the hallucination of Steven being in his room with him, talking to him until he felt like he was back inside of his own body, until he stopped being afraid. The Marines had forced him to adopt a new set of coping mechanisms, to keep Steven and Jake firmly within the confines of his mind, but being discharged had left him near destructive and constantly feeling like the confines of his body were going to break apart--that was when he started fighting. 

It literally, physically demands that he be present in his own body as one person, shuts the noise of everything else down to just what is tangible--he never doubts himself in the ring, he never doubts what is real. The set up of fights is nothing particularly special, a ring gets set up somewhere (usually in an abandoned warehouse) and details get passed around--whoever wants to fight does, and there’s usually enough bored rich people that lay down enough money to make it interesting. He’s been involved with a lot worse, and he needs it, so he shows up when he gets the text.

Tonight he’s fresh out, a bleeding nose and a bruise forming near his cheekbone--but the other guy looks a hell of a lot worse and Marc has 300 extra dollars to his name now. He wipes at blood with the back of his still taped hand to no avail, sees a face that he recognizes enter the room. He’d been in uniform as Moon Knight last time they met, so he plays it casual. “You like what you saw, or are the doctors they get for these things getting younger?” 

i’m looking for some new marc threads, so like or comment for a starter ! 

STEVEN and Jake were part of him, had their own lives and reacted to things in their own ways--but sometimes Marc needed one of them without giving up complete control of his body. He needed Steven Grant, one of the premier antiquities dealers in the entire city, in the Museum of Natural History making lazy circles around the Ancient Egypt exhibits, with Marc Spector and by extension Moon Knight seeing through his eyes. It was easier to get his questions about the item in question answered with Steven Grant’s business card’s burning holes in the pockets of his designer jacket. It was easier to find the right person for the job of stealing that item, under the cover of Jake Lockley’s taxi cab, or in the dark corners of the bars on the wrong sides of town that he liked to drink at. 

Khonshu had woken him up from a dead sleep a couple of weeks ago, the image of a golden Ankh burning behind his eyes--a screeching half bird, half man, half something else entirely voice declaring that it belonged to him rightfully, and that it would assist the Moon Knight in channeling the power of the moon with more ease, that it was a weapon worthy of the paladin of the god of vengeance. Marc is half convinced the thing is going to turn out to be a grave robber’s ingenuity the moment it exits its museum casing, but it’s all he’s been able to think about in his spare moments--the ankh shape, practically burning with its brightness. He’s perched on a rooftop a few buildings away and he thinks he can see it in the way the moonlight filters down onto the city streets, but he’s started out of that thought when a hand touches his shoulder gently. His thief, who apparently is fond of making an entrance. 

“Black Cat,” He says as he turns around slowly. “You come highly recommended.” 

THERE’S always a risk involved with the truth--it got him thrown out of the Marines, it got him murdered in the middle of the Egyptian desert, he’s sure that under the accords he would have been thrown in jail or some manner of institution if the truth were really known. He likes Karen, he likes having her as an ally and possibly a friend, he also thinks she’s one of the last genuinely trustworthy people left in the whole city--but perceptions change, Marc has the exact tick of muscles that happens with every reaction memorized. He glances up at the moon for a half second, as if the outline of Khonshu’s bird skulled form will suddenly appear and tell him the right course of action. He doesn’t care, Marc knows it. “Dissociative identity disorder.” He says slowly, finally. It’s been since the hospital in Chicago since he properly said the words out loud himself, rather than hearing them said to him, about him. “Since I was a child. Khonshu effectively functions as--another personality, though he is very much his own. I’m more of--a vessel, when it comes to him.” 

He laughs and shakes his head when she matter of factly states that she never claimed to be safe. “I suppose that’s why we make good traveling companions, we can make up the difference together.” Her profession has taught her to keep outward expressions of emotion minimal, but Marc sees the way her eyes fall downwards, the way she too spares a half second glance at the moon as she tries to digest what exactly having Khonshu on her side means. “I will, though he’s not really all that personable--or easy on the eyes. He normally has a bird skull instead of a face.” He smiles warmly, since New York got moved and he’s been separated from Frenchie, he’s forgotten how it feels to have someone who genuinely enjoys his company, believes in what he’s doing and how he’s doing it. He wonders if everyone who meets Karen Page is as suddenly struck with the urge to kill anyone who tries to hurt her as he is. 

“I think--people who come by their power naturally, like Khonshu, it sits on their shoulders in a certain way, a natural way. It feels like he’s--still searching for something, y’know? For that natural ease.” He shrugs his shoulders, runs a finger idly over the edge of a moon dart. “Of course I’ll have your back, you don’t have to question that. I’m good at this whole paladin thing by now.” His mind is already going, he’s already filling away questions to ask Khonshu next time the god makes himself known. “Whatever he did--I should have been invulnerable to it, Khonshu protects me from psychic attacks, not to mention it’s nearly impossible to navigate my mind in the first place. I don’t know if that’s--at all useful.” 

STEVEN Grant shook the hand of his business associate and smiled warmly, promised to schedule a meeting for later in the week. He purposely keeps it vague in terms of specifics, just in case something comes up in Marc’s night job, or more truthfully, in case it’s one of those days when Marc has a hard time hauling himself out of bed, feeding himself, basic human necessities. It’s Steven’s version of sympathy, planning for these things, despite what Marc might say. He gets into the back of a cab but has it drop him a couple of blocks over, enough so his business associate won’t ask any questions, and he ducks into a nearby dark alley. He drags a hand through his carefully tamed dark hair and sighs. It’s been a long day, hopefully Khonshu will keep it light tonight, not drag Marc out through who-knows-what. 

He blinks his eyes and Marc’s breath hitches as he takes in his surroundings--an alleyway he doesn’t recognize, a couple of blocks from where he vaguely remembers Steven having a meeting of some kind--or was that next week? He’s still dressed in Steven’s clothes, so much nicer than anything Marc would ever choose to wear, but he can feel the under suit of the armor underneath it, which eases something in his chest, eases him into his body again after being out of it for so long. He starts digging through the duffel bag at his feet with one hand, undoing buttons on the button up shirt with the other, starts sliding on pieces of armor in careful order--establishing control of himself. Under his breath he says a kind of mantra, this is not Khonshu, this is not Steven, this is Marc. This is not Khonshu, this is not Steven, this is Marc. 

He pulls the cowl on his cape up over his head and exhales, glances up at the moon for a half second before he hears the sounds of a demon growling, and a familiar voice that he hasn’t heard since at least before the invasion started--if not longer. He was kinda convinced the owner had somehow found a way to get himself killed, against all odds. 

“Deadpool,” He drawls as he steps out of the shadows, a faint smile on his face as he throws out a moon dart. “Still making friends I see.” 

“I’M not a god.” Marc says on a slow exhale. Most days it feels like a loose catch all term for everything that Khonshu is, he’s always shifting and changing enough that Marc can never quiet grasp him entirely--some days so he can’t grasp him at all. He sometimes thinks he might be closer to an angel, a warped and twisted version of some heavenly being basking in holy light--the white light of the moon, the absence of light in the darkness of that tomb or the night sky, the spaces between stars. “They’ve always been there though, it’s just that no one knows where to look for them until it’s too late and they want something. Bad usually.” He’s reminded of the scant few memories he has of his father practicing his sermons, his voice reaching to the back of the synagogue with rapture as he preached of the divine missions of human beings--how little he actually knew about the real terror of the divine. Then again, he’s not sure what actually constitutes divine anymore. 

“Listen man, I was just tracking a group of soldiers, and you happened to be in my path. I’m not suggesting marriage here.” Marc shrugs his shoulders and rolls his eyes. He knew that the Punisher would be difficult, but this is bordering on just stubbornness for the sake of stubbornness, possibly to see if Marc will just break and move on his way. “I wanted to see how they interact with the demons on the streets--in comparison to the ones guarding the resources.” He resists the urge to grin triumphantly when he gets his in, approaches the place where the Punisher is crouched in wait. 

“Fine then, call me Spector, I don’t care.” He huffs and rolls his eyes underneath his hood. “What do you want me to call you, if not Punisher?”