#Obsessed with the idea of them discovering the library of Alexandria had never burnt down

[writingfics-passingtime]

Song: Fahrenheit - Azee

With Marc Spector x fem reader

(I think this may fit well with the Outlaw fic 👀)

Lovely anon, thank you for this request! Definitely feels like Outlaw and that tough-guy reader, and I had fun writing that type of reader character again.

I completely failed at writing something drabble-length but my house, my rules to break. The urge to turn this into such a long fic was and is so fucking strong… sorry for how I left this one 😅 I hope you like it 💜

Compromise

This one-shot is part of JJ’s Mixtape - a mini series based on my followers’ favourite songs and characters. You can read more of them here!

Song prompt: Fahrenheit

Pairing: Marc Spector x female reader

Words: 2450

CWs: Some swearing, mentions of violence

There’s a light on in an upstairs window.

A shadow ebbing through the soft warm glow tells Marc that it wasn’t left on by mistake; there’s someone else inside. But another intruder wouldn’t have turned a light on, unless they were dead stupid, so whoever’s inside is allowed to be.

He’ll have to be careful.

It’s a little past two in the morning when Marc sticks a pick into the keyhole of a maintenance entrance and enters the great stone building. As to be expected in this old library, no alarm or security camera pings the signal detector on his watch. He relaxes, still keeping his steps quiet, and hopes that this strange directive from Khonshu would remain simply strange and not complicated.

“Why do you need me to steal an old book?”

“It’s not a book in the way your human mind is limited to understand,” Khonshu explained. Marc didn’t pretend to look interested or unbothered, but some secret place found relief in the lack the command to end another evil life.

“The Ennead Codex contains matters of great importance, and it is in danger of falling into the hands of those who wish to access the underworld.”

Whatever that means, Marc thought. He didn’t question it further. Really, he didn’t care all that much. It was just another task from his master.

Without many more words, Khonshu told Marc where the sacred manuscripts had been hidden for the past several decades. They’d been moved to this seemingly insignificant library in a small town.

Hidden in plain sight.

As Marc lifts a brass handle and slips through a dark walnut door into the main chambers of the library, he doesn’t bother donning the suit. He’d probably slip in and out undetected, harnessing his years of covert ops.

For a small town, the room is towering and impressive and beautiful. Filtered through a expanse of glass in the ceiling, moonlight casts its judgement across the carved stone pillars of the rotunda. Patches of dark blue carpet are dimly aglow with the help of the night sky, until Marc casts his own shadow across them.

He walks past the circular desk that sits in the dead centre of the room, now having clocked the sign for the Reference section where Khonshu said the Codex may be hidden.

The shelves are shrouded in darkness as he approaches and searches for the number “202.” He doesn’t get very far before the hairs on the back of his neck pique his fight or flight.

His right hand meets the gun at his side, pointer finger itching to meet the strength of the trigger, and a small clicking noise on the other side of the room sends him slipping behind a pillar.

He waits, listens, tries to discern where the sound came from. Footsteps. Coming towards the centre of the room.

Towards him.

Marc slows his breathing to keep it quiet. He wonders if the other presence in the library can sense him in the way he could sense them. Sure, years of tactical training hone the senses, but there’s also a distinct human instinct that tells someone when they’re not alone. He swallows hard when he remembers that it’s possible this other presence is not human.

“I know you’re in here,” a voice echoes through the aisles and up to the ceiling. Sounds human enough. She doesn’t sound afraid so she probably has a weapon. Marc tightens his grip on the gun, readying to draw.

“Come on out,” you command, sounding a little impatient.

You don’t declare a weapon. He doesn’t hear the safety of a pistol disengage, or the cocking of a shotgun, so he emerges from the shadows with a hand on his holstered gun.

You look sharp and powerful, standing in the centre of the room. Empty hands hang by your side - no visible weapon - you tilt your head, intrigued when you see the intruder. The light of the early morning moon chisels harshly against your features, projecting something familiar and severe towards the man who’d broken in.

“What are you doing here?” Your voice is accusing. You take a step towards him, head lowering to show him an unwavering, disarming stare. There’s a flicker of hostility and a glint of gold in your eyes that numbs his tongue just long enough to be too long. “English?” You stop walking and set your jaw. You look like a normal person.

“Yeah, English,” Marc finds his words and quickly assesses you, your stance, the outline of your body. There’s no bulkiness to your clothing, there’s no tension that gives away a readiness to strike; you’re no threat to him. There’s time to grab the book and get out before the small-town cops arrived.

“I’ll be out of your hair in a minute. No one needs to get hurt.” He says it as he turns away from you and you immediately call out after him.

“I won’t let you take it.”

He turns back and narrows his eyes in question.

“I know what you’re here for,” your fingers begin to curl into fists, your chest rises with a breath of preparation. “You need to leave. Now.”

Marc’s eyes flick to your growing battle posture, and he begins to summons the suit.

The exhales of the old pages lining the bookshelves glitter dust through the streams of moonlight. The same moonlight from which Khonshu’s vessel draws the power he begins to feel pulsing through his fingertips, through his chest and the back of his head. He lowers the hand from his gun and looks you dead in the eye. Marc sees another glimmer of gold. It was so fast, if he’d been blinking he’d have missed it. He juts his chin in challenge. “Who are you?”

“Leave,” is your only answer. “I won’t tell you again.”

The room fills with a gentle thundering the second your hands close into fists. Books, across every shelf, buzz with a strange power. The light fixtures are barely swinging, there’s no dust falling from the ceilings, but the shelves are alive with a ferocity you held. No more time to waste.

Lunar silver fills Marc’s vision as the sacred suit fixes tightly around him. He can’t leave here without that Codex. He’s fully prepared to fight you for it.

He positions himself into a stance ready to defend and to attack, watching with bated breath as you see his suit take place. The moment the ceremonial garb fits the last swath to Marc’s skin, you raise your fists.

The room falls quiet. The books fall still.

Marc waits, he listens, he watches as you determine he’s a bigger threat than you’d thought. It looks like you’re bleeding energy to hold your fists above your head, like you’re holding great power. Then, he notices the stream of moonlight begin to dilute. A warm, golden light begins emanating from the bookshelves. From the books themselves.

In a move too swift to predict, you draw your arms down towards your chest and fall to one knee.

A thread of light shoots from what looks to be every page in the room, blasting towards you before he has the chance to blink. Marc has to shield his eyes and again duck behind the pillar to protect himself from a glare so bright he was sure it rivalled the sun’s surface. It’s overpowering, debilitating, even through his tightly shut eyes, he throws his face against the crook of his elbow until he can sense the light begin to wane.

He emerges from the pillar fully prepared to attack, but stops in his tracks when he sees you rise to your feet.

You had transformed.

In a way that was all too familiar.

Golden cuffs circle your wrists, upper arms, your collar adorned with twists of gold and ivory. The breastplate of your armour is blanched leather bordered in the bones of an ancient being. A white cloth drapes around your waist, falling halfway down your legs. Your shins are wrapped in the same cloth, down to where your ankles are cuffed in gold above your bare feet.

Marc hold up his hands in surrender when he eyes the long golden staff in your white-knuckled grip. Not because he thought he couldn’t win, but because it looked like something he’d seen before. “I think we’re on the same side here.”

You smirk, scoff through your nose and point the staff at him. “Anyone attempting to steal the Ennead Codex is on no side of ours.”

“I’m not trying to steal it,” Marc drops the hood and lets the cloth peel back from his face. To show you his eyes in an appeal for trust. You didn’t waver. “I was sent to retrieve it.”

A raised eyebrow tells Marc that, to you, it’s the same fucking thing.

He holds his breath and asks, “Who do you serve?”

He watches you examine him. His suit. He watches as you realise you have a lot more in common than you’d care to admit; somehow, somewhere along the way, your lives ended up in the hands of beings too powerful to comprehend.

You don’t lower your staff as you say, with pride and strength in your voice, “I am the Scribe of Seshat. Tasked with protecting the Ennead Codex, and any knowledge those would seek out to use for destruction.” Marc takes a step forward and you don’t like that. With a single nod up, you counter, “Your turn.” Your grip on the hook-ended staff tightens. He doesn’t flinch.

“I am the Fist of Khonshu. Tasked with protecting travellers of the night.” He only stops when he’s a step away from the end of your staff. “Khonshu sent me to retrieve the Codex.”

You pull the sharp hook away, planting the lower end back on the floor beside your feet, and the books thunder for half a second. Again, Marc doesn’t flinch.

After several moments of tense, insular processing, you fix your eyes on a shelf behind your intruder and you begin to look nervous. “Seshat said this day would come.” You then meet his eye with an openness he hadn’t expected. “I just didn’t think it would be this soon.”

“Seshat doesn’t sit on the Ennead Council,” Marc subtly probes, keenly watching the way you’d react.

“No,” you confirm. “Never wants to. The only reason she has an Avatar is to keep them at bay. Seshat wants nothing to do with the Council…” you begin to walk past him, pausing at his side to add, “Especially Khonshu.”

You keep walking so Marc turns his body towards you, and don’t tell him to stay or back off so he follows as you enter the darkened rows.

Your barefooted steps are automatic and confident, carrying you to near the end of a nondescript shelf of reference material. After a moment of pause, reverence, and reflection, you place your hand on the spine of a thick book and chant a few words under your breath. It glows gold for a moment before changing appearance and sliding out into your hand.

Marc watches you caress the edges of the pages and look at the Ennead Codex as if it were something you truly cared for. Truly believed in.

He holds out a hand and promises, “I won’t let anything happen to it.”

Your head snaps towards him and he sees a startling intensity in your eye, along with those flecks of gold. “I know you won’t,” you start, “because the Codex isn’t leaving my sight.” Marc opens his mouth to protest but your protective grip tightens and you set your jaw. “I am the keeper of this Codex. I go where it goes.”

Marc shakes his head once. “Not gonna happen.”

“It’s not up for debate.”

“Don’t make me take it from you.”

A new low rumbling begins all around. Your eyes don’t leave each other as a smirk peaks into the corner of your mouth. “A sliver of waning moonlight versus a roomful of knowledge… do you like your chances against me in my domain, Moon Knight?”

Marc’s stomach lurches, though he gives no outward indication. Moon Knight. He didn’t tell you that name.

Your eyes burn gold, brightening every moment you build the power you’re pulling from the sources around you. Marc bites his tongue and assesses the situation as the library fills with the show of the ancient being you carry the mark of.

Marc arrives at the conclusion that, if you are indeed a vessel for Seshat, fighting you here would be a losing battle. He has no advantage. So, like a good Marine, he knows when to call the retreat. He knows when to compromise, and he does so with a gentle lift of his hands in surrender.

Your eyes return to normal, the books stop readying themselves for battle, and you brush past him with the Codex in your hands. He turns, recovering quickly, and starts after you. “How d’you-”

“Know that name?” You suddenly stop and turn. Marc’s body almost crashes against yours but he stops on a dime and plants one foot behind him, giving you two at least a little bit of personal space. You look him up and down before levelling him with a single look. “How do I, Avatar of the great Goddess of Wisdom and Knowledge, the goddess who invented writing and record-keeping… how do I know who you are?”

Your rhetorical question hangs in the air like the smirk lingers on your lips. After a few moments, Marc nods and sticks his tongue against the inside of his cheek. “We’ll go together to Khonshu, then go our separate ways.”

After, in silence, you reminisce on what Seshat had told you about this day that would come, you nod. “Fine. But if you try to take this from me, I’m gone.”

He gestures around and tries to look unimpressed. “Do you need to do a little light show to change outfits or…?”

He drops the suit in a matter of seconds, before showing a forced and sarcastic smile. Without breaking eye contact, your own garb seamlessly transforms back into the simple clothes you’d been wearing when you first walked in. Your height lifts by an inch when the sneakers finally form around your feet, and you don’t waste a second to turn and begin walking back towards the door from which you and Marc both came. “Keep up, Moon Boy.”

Marc huffs a low grunt, takes a deep breath to ground himself, and sets his jaw before following after you.

This was supposed to be a simple in-and-out, not a full-on extraction. He was here for the Codex, and now that you’ll be leaving your power source he’ll have to look after you until gods know when.

U.S. Marine to glorified fuckin’ babysitter…

Khonshu owes him. Big time.