Who: Marta What: Post-Plot Narrative Where: Seven's too-big house -> Marvel NYC When: A day or two after plot Warnings/Rating: Some angst, some confusion, some talk of plot issues, existential reassessment
She had no idea what she was feeling. Even after talking to Sam, talking to Russ, understanding why they'd done everything at the mall, she could still remember how it felt to wake up naked, sticky, slick, and not know what was going on. It was messing with her, leaving her questioning everything that was going on. She didn't like the feeling, wanting to track down where it lived and cut it out of herself. Barring that, she wanted to understand why she felt it. The mall, yeah, but it was more than that, and she spent a good part of that first day trying to figure it out.
It was easy enough to go back over things in her mind, interactions in person, on the phone - text and journals were even easier, saved in digital memory and laid out in pen on blank pages. And when she did, when she'd sorted through everything she could find or remember, she sat down and frowned. The hotel had fucked her over. It was what it did. It tossed everyone on their asses and left them to deal with the clean-up. Over and over. And yeah, it had scared her. Knives in her chest and aliens and putting on someone else's face and having someone put on hers, it all scared her. She could deal with some things she knew would horrify other people, but the hotel attacked with things she didn't know how to fight. And in the middle of that, it tossed Seven at her. And hadn't he seemed like a fucking gift? Strong enough to take care of himself and to let her lean on him. Rich as hell, but not in a way that made him look down on simple shit. An asshole, but a nice one. And hot as fucking hell. And shit if she hadn't latched right onto that. But looking back, she wasn't sure she should have.
She'd been on her own for so long, even before she'd run off from her mom, and suddenly she'd put herself into someone else's care. She was in a superhero comic book world, she was living alone with one person (that she wasn't entirely certain was into her the way she was into him), and she wasn't working. She was in the middle of the longest break from sex she could remember having since she started having sex, and most of her days were spent alone now, even when she left the house. And then the fucking hotel.
No wonder she no longer felt like herself.
More than anything, she felt young. That hated feeling of too few years in the face of everyone else's experience, where she finally learned a lesson and felt all the stupider for it. Everything confused her, from the hotel to things at the place she'd just called home. It had thrown everything else off and made her start to question every last things she'd been trying to ignore. Like the fact that for all the talk of care, the fact that Seven had nearly insisted she stay at his house after the alien invasion, he hadn't actually made any sort of move on her since that first night they'd hooked up. She couldn't remember him even looking twice at her in the months since then. She'd never had a brother - or anyone even close - but other than that anomaly of the first night they'd met, he'd treated her like she'd seen older brothers treat their little sisters. Fond and annoyed, depending on the minute, reassuring her that he'd be home soon when the big bad wolf knocked at her door.
Maybe that was just the way he was. But she didn't know. And for the first time, she really stopped to think about it. And what she should do about it, if she was the one with a crush and he was the one feeling brotherly.
She didn't want to move. No, not yet. Even if she was in the room for strays (not that she was convinced that's what Sam was), it was a good room. It was warm and private and the bed was something made for (and by) gods, she was certain of it. And it had made her soft - she wanted to keep it, instead of finding another place that was a step up from a flop house to share with half a dozen other people. But if she stayed, things had to change. She did. She couldn't continue to stay, rent-free, expecting him to take care of her like she had been. She'd spent so long taking care of herself, and even if she kept the room, she was done taking advantage. Maybe she hadn't been able to find her way to the hotel and into Gatsby, and maybe she hadn't heard from Lyra or Anais since that last message. But that didn't mean she couldn't find a job. She had to assume that even in a world of superheroes, guys still wanted to stare at girls taking off their clothes. It was New York, for fuck's sake. In a city of that many people, there had to be a strip club somewhere.
And a tattoo shop. Fuck, did she want new ink. There was that itch under her skin where she could feel phantom fingers, and she knew that the buzz of a needle would chase it away. It had been months since she'd finished off the Ganesha on her leg, and if all the alone time in the mansion had been good for one thing, she'd managed to find a tattoo artist online who worked in the area whose style she liked.
Hair pulled up, jeans and boots on and a shirt (of her own, not borrowed) to cover up, she slipped out of the house after swiping the emergency money stash from the kitchen. Seven had told her about it a while ago, right after she'd moved in. It wasn't meant to be for ink, but she knew she would pay it back. She still figured that a job shouldn't be too hard to find.
And it wasn't. Hours later found her with a tentative start date coming up fast, instant audition for the owner done, paperwork already filled out with the documentation the hotel had given her. She'd been a little nervous handing over that gifted ID, but the owner hadn't even looked twice at it. A few signatures, and she was on the payroll. It wasn't as seedy as her first place, even if it was nowhere near as nice as the Bella had been. The girls danced for tips, which would put her back into the reach of the customers, but not many places were run like Lyra and Anais had run theirs. Marta wasn't going to complain - she had a job.
And a while after that, she had some new ink. She hadn't actually expected to walk right in and sit down, but someone else had canceled on the artist, and he was more than happy to fill the time with a paying customer. Her research had paid off, because the guy was good. He'd drawn right on her skin, a few loops and free-handed circles as guides, before settling in to do the actual work. He didn't rush it, and by the time her work was done, Marta's shoulder burned, but her mind was quiet. She left him with a big tip and her phone number (just in case), and picked up some takeout on the way back to the mansion. When she finally slipped into bed later that night, she was able to sleep better than she thought she would have for a long time to come.