Chapter Text
When Marc got the body back — Grant was in charge of their evening shaving routine now, him and Lockley had ganged up on Marc to hand the job over — there was a new door on one side of the bathroom, painted a bright fire-truck red.
He didn't think twice about it. Why would he? The architecture of the Midnight Mission was always shifting around. Sometimes for tactical reasons, sometimes just...because it could. It reminded Marc of a cat in a sunbeam, how they could sit in one position for an hour at a time, then do a little stretch and roll over before settling in for the next hour.
(Marc had also seen Greer's kid do this exact thing. It was adorable.)
It had been so much weirder when the building stopped moving. When it was "dead," the eldritch soul sucked out of its architectural body. These sudden changes to colors and floor plans just meant it was settling back in.
So, yeah, Marc walked through the new red door.
...And found himself in a room that might actually not be part of the Mission.
It looked like some kind of used bookstore. The shelves were piled with worn-looking paperbacks, a coffee machine and a rack of mugs sat in one corner, the window display featured weird-looking antiques with handwritten price tags. There was one actual customer browsing the books (a woman in a pastel coat that must've been pricey, because Grant was quietly impressed), and a dark-haired woman in glasses sitting at the register (Lockley estimated she was older than Reese, but probably not by much).
"Mission, what—?" whispered Marc. On the slim hope that he was, in fact, still in the Mission.
No response.
The customer didn't even glance at him. The employee at the register did — Marc braced himself to be kicked out, given that he walked in here without shoes — but she didn't bat an eye at the fact that he was barely dressed, just leaned back in her chair and hollered, "Hey, boss! Door guy!"
In response, Wanda Maximoff came out from behind a shelf.
Oh, wow. Marc hadn't seen Wanda in...how many years had it even been? It went back to Moon Knight's brief run with the West Coast Avengers. The Scarlet Witch and Vision had crossed paths with them, while on leave from the real grown-up Avengers, and had a few adventures together.
(Her brother Quicksilver had them kidnapped together for a hot minute. It was a whole thing.)
Present-day Marc's memories of that whole era were pretty fuzzy. He did have a vague memory of giving Wanda some kind of pep talk about...uh...how she wouldn't go mad like her brother, because she was too strong for it? Awkward.
If present-day Wanda recognized him in return, she didn't show it. (West-Coast-Marc didn't spend a lot of time out-of-mask when she was around. Or at all. Real poster child for mental health, he was.) "Welcome to the Emporium. How can I help?"
"Uh," said Marc. He was used to giving the what-problem-can-I-fix-for-you speech, not receiving it. "Sorry, I think I just came through the wrong door."
"Not actually how that works." Wanda's voice was deceptively casual — she wasn't even wearing her formal Scarlet Witch outfit, just a sweater-dress and slacks — but the power behind it was still palpable. "The Last Door only opens for those in the direst need, who feel they have nowhere left to turn."
"Well, you can tell your Door its timing is off." Marc tried to put his hands in his pockets, then remembered he was in sweatpants instead of the Mr. Knight suit, and planted them awkwardly on his hips instead. "It sure felt like we had nowhere to turn a couple weeks ago, when my people were chased out of our home and framed as a cult by an Asgardian drug lord. But we're good now."
"Dude," broke in the glasses-woman. She leaned over the counter to peer at Marc with the distinctive squint of somebody who follows cape news in general, but doesn't obsessively track every D-lister. "Is that...are you...?"
"...one of my old colleagues? Yes, Darcy, he is." Wanda made a twirly gesture with one hand, and Marc's ratty sleep-clothes morphed into a passable three-piece suit. "Well. For a loose definition of one. Give us a minute."
She crossed the floor to join Marc. He thought about bolting, but the Last Door, annoyingly, had closed itself. At least the lone customer chose that moment to head for the register, so Darcy was kept busy ringing her up.
"I really don't need anything," said Marc, avoiding Wanda's piercing green eyes. Didn't seem fair that, even though she knew who he was, she hadn't conjured him a mask. At least this evening he didn't have any visible bruises for her to fuss over. "There are things I want, but...the reason I don't have them is, any time I get a chance with them, I blow it. If you give me another chance when I haven't done the work, I'll just blow it again."
(When Marc eventually told Dr. Sterman about this conversation, she was going to give him such a good grade in therapy.)
"Sounds reasonable enough," said Wanda. "But if you aren't in desperate need...perhaps someone else in your body is?"
"They're fine," snapped Marc automatically.
Wanda tilted her head, one eyebrow raised. "Any chance they could tell me that themselves?"
Oh no, she was going to insist.
"Don't pick a fight with the lady, Marc," came Lockley's voice in his head. "She's gotta check. You would too, if you were in her shoes."
"Also," put in Grant, all business, "don't pick a fight with the Scarlet Witch, because I just finished the paperwork from the last time we were dead."
Marc gritted his teeth. Fine. Which of you wants to go first?
Ooh, that shut them both up.
Grant and Lockley liked to be recognized when they were already fronting — which Marc was trying to appreciate and respect, no matter how exposed it made him feel. But having the actual switch recognized? Doing it in public, on purpose, in front of somebody who knew what they were looking at? Unless it was Marlene, or maybe Reese, none of them were in any hurry to get that vulnerable.
"It doesn't have to be out here, if that's not comfortable," said Wanda gently. "I could follow you into your mindscape instead."
Marc snorted. "My mindscape poisons telepaths."
Wanda folded her arms. "I have a demonic elder god of chaos locked up in mine. You think anything in your psyche is more poisonous than his?"
...Okay, she had him there.
⬣
The neon pink lights cast a warm glow around Jake's favorite hole-in-the-wall. There was a glass of rum on the bar in front of him, and a boxing match muted on the TV.
He slid a second glass down the bar to Wanda, who for some reason was in slinky red-and-black evening wear. "You are way overdressed for this place, doll."
"Came here straight from work," said Wanda casually. She didn't try the drink, just swirled it around to make the glass clink against the sides. Had a real eye for aesthetic, this lady. "You don't need the help of the Last Door?"
Jake shrugged. "I get time to hang out with my poker buddies. The kids trust me to chaperone when they need to get in trouble. Grant is good about keeping a spare mustache in our pocket, and even Spector checks it now. My life's pretty good. What do I need a magic door for?"
Wanda scanned the mindscape room. "This place...is it always a sports bar?"
"Sometimes it's the kind of place where I go to wallow over our ex," admitted Jake. "You never do that? Although I guess in your case, you gotta go to Radio Shack."
He was maybe trying to needle her a little. She just laughed.
"Don't need a magic fix for the relationship either," added Jake. On the off chance it needed to be spelled out.
They weren't getting her back this time. Full stop. But they did finally build up enough trust that, last week, she risked letting them see Diatrice for a few days. And they got the kid through a whole visit without being attacked, kidnapped, and/or ritually sacrificed!
Best-case scenario, they kept getting more visits, and they kept proving themselves capable of keeping their daughter safe. But there weren't any shortcuts to that kind of trust — you just had to keep doing the work. If they tried to find ways to sneak around the work, and Marlene found out...? It would blow up that last fragile shred of trust for good.
Wanda raised her glass, offering Jake a toast. "To not blowing things up."
Whoops. Jake would have to be more careful about thoughtleak when there was a psychic around. Still..."I'll drink to that."
⬣
Sunlight poured through the windows of Steven's boardroom, somehow without disrupting the charts and diagrams projected on the opposite wall.
"Don't try too hard to get meaning out of those," warned Steven, leaning against the end of a polished mahogany desk while Wanda perused the reports. "It's not like we have a photographic memory for the actual numbers. On a bad day, we don't have any memory for numbers."
Wanda nodded. She was wearing a classy off-the-shoulder gown that outshone Steven's navy business suit, making him feel like he should've imagined himself in a tuxedo. "At least they're all going up?"
"Sometimes I look at where our investment accounts would be today. If we still had them," said Steven dryly. "Up is depressing."
"Ah," said Wanda. "Does this mean you're also the one who tracks your real finances...?"
Steven adjusted his tie. "We're not hurting for money, if that's what you're getting at."
He decided not to mention how much black-market cash Spector was dealing in these days. No need to risk that intel getting back to the Avengers. Even though, for all Steven knew, this might've been one of the months where Wanda was more in-the-doghouse with them than Moon Knight was.
"Could we have a bigger portfolio? Of course. But all our basic needs are covered. Food, shelter, medical care, hygiene."
They could afford all of it, and they were successfully blocking Spector from self-sabotaging by avoiding it. Their body got a whole six hours of sleep today! This evening, they moisturized! Steven was pretty damn proud of his achievements, here.
When Wanda didn't look convinced, Steven added, "Does it help if I tell you we don't have to pay rent?"
That seemed to pique her interest, at least. "Really? Some kind of religious tax exemption...?"
"Our building is an eldritch being from the Dark Dimension that Marc adopted."
"Oh, of course," said Wanda cheerfully. "I should have guessed."
⬣
A single lamp lit the center of Marc's office, throwing everything outside its limited range into deep ominous shadows...
"Nope," said Marc.
⬣
...and then Marc was back in the Emporium, leaning stiffly away from Wanda. That was more than enough of the mortifying ordeal of being known for one day, thanks. "So, they told you? Are we good now?"
"Your...companions...told me they didn't need the Last Door. And I believe them," said Wanda slowly. "But that leaves us with a puzzle. Who did need it? Who did it open for?"
"You're sure this thing never opens on its own? Just because it feels like it?"
"Nah, there's always someone!" chirped Darcy from the counter. Her customer must've left while Marc was dissociating, so she was free to chime in again. "Last time we didn't see anybody come through, it turned out the client was microscopic."
Could a microscopic person have snuck into Marc's bathroom without the Mission noticing? He sure hoped not. "Did you check for microscopic people?"
"Yep-p," said Darcy brightly. "Wanda's got an automatic scan for that now."
"Was there anybody with you on the other side?" asked Wanda, stepping past him to see the Door. Bits of red light danced around her fingers as she gave it a magic once-over. "Anyone who didn't come through with you, I mean?"
"Nobody." Greer always spent the days at her own place, unless her kid was away. Sometimes Reese and Soldier slept at the House while the sun was up, but the Mission understood about giving everyone separate bathrooms. And Marc wasn't exactly having a ton of other guests outside his normal business hours. "It was just me and..."
He stopped.
Inside their mind, Grant slapped his imaginary forehead. Lockley rested facedown on the imaginary bar with a groan.
Wanda, taking mercy on him, finished the thought: "...And the building-sized eldritch being you live in."