Callirhoe (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
callirhoe) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
no_true_pair2022-09-07 08:34 pm
callirhoe) wrote in no_true_pair2022-09-07 08:34 pm
Fledgling (Moon Knight comics, Jean-Paul Duchamp & Marlene Alraune)
Title: Fledgling
Fandom: Moon Knight (Marvel comics)
Pairing/Characters: Jean-Paul Duchamp & Marlene Alraune
Rating: General
Content Notes: None!
Prompt: September Five - Jean-Paul Duchamp & Marlene Alraune - in the woods
Note: A companion piece to this one :)
"Mom! Uncle Frenchie! Look, no hands."
Diatrice, dangling by her knees from a high bough in the ancient leafy oak, dropped her hands to wave energetically down at the pair of them, her bright pink braid pointing down toward the ground far below. Marlene cringed at the distance she would drop if she fell. She opened her mouth to call for her to be careful and stop being reckless, but stopped herself just in time; being told not to do something instantly made that thing ten times more attractive to her child.
"Very good, ma mignonne," Frenchie called up to her, grinning. "I wonder, can you also swing from your hands all the way across the branch and back?" He turned to Marlene as Diatrice scrambled to do just that, and laughed at the expression on her face. "Ah, try not to fret, Marlene. I'm sure you worried your parents just as much at her age, and look how well you turned out."
"Of course I did." She kept her eyes firmly fixed on her daughter. "And now I feel like I owed them one huge apology for all the heart attacks Peter and I must've given them." He smiled and touched her arm, and they were quiet for a minute, watching her seven-year-old shimmy expertly along a sturdy bough. "She keeps asking to go into the city," she told him finally.
Frenchie nodded, unsurprised. "She asked me if I would take her yesterday."
Marlene sighed and crossed her arms over her chest. "I'm half convinced that if I tell her no, she'll just get on a bus and go by herself. She really wants to see him."
"I know." Frenchie put an arm around her shoulder and squeezed. "Diatrice is very like her mother: she's extremely bold and impossibly stubborn, she doesn't hear the word no, and she loves that man beyond all reason."
She half laughed, half winced at that assessment. "Ouch. But fair." Marlene tilted her head to keep Diatrice in her sights as she perched in the crook of a branch with her long legs dangling, peering at something in her hands. "I know you've been spending time with him since we came back. What do you think? Has he changed?"
"He is different," Frenchie answered slowly. "Perhaps as different as you and I are from the people we used to be. He's doing his own thing now, this Midnight Mission, and he's truly doing good for the people in his neighborhood, who love and trust him. He is undergoing therapy, and he has people around him. His assistant, Reese, is an exceptional young woman. I like her, and I think you would, too. And Diatrice would love his new house." He smiled like that was some private joke. "But he's still Marc, and Moon Knight, and Jake and Steven too. He'll always be complicated."
"I know. I know that." Marlene's heart ached just listening to Frenchie talk about him. She always ached thinking about her Steven, her Marc, even Jake. "And he'll always be dangerous."
He looked at her in that way he had sometimes that made Marlene remember he'd had years with Marc before she'd ever met him. He'd known this man longer than any person still living, and loved him for most of it. Frenchie had been just as dangerous as Marc when she'd met them, and for quite a long time afterward; it was easy to forget that, knowing him now.
"His life will always be dangerous. But life often is." Frenchie gave his most Gallic shrug. "She's your child, and it's your decision, Marlene. I can't tell you what to do—"
The crack of a tree branch overhead sent Marlene's heart flying into her throat. She looked up to see Diatrice hanging by one hand with something cradled to her chest in the other, dangling ten feet above the ground. Before she could move or say anything, Frenchie, with his agile speed despite the prosthetics and his excellent judgment of trajectories, was there to catch her daughter as she dropped, neatly as if they'd planned it.
Diatrice, bits of bark and leaf in her hair and completely unaware of the visions of broken bones dancing through her mother's head, grinned down at her godfather and opened her hand to show him a tiny nest. "Look what I found. There are broken egg shells in here. I wonder where the baby birds flew off to."
Frenchie lowered her to the ground and laid a hand on the top of her head. "Je sais pas, ma mie. But I think no more flying for you today." He caught Marlene's eye with a rueful smile and a shake of his head. "Let's go and find your mother a drink."
Fandom: Moon Knight (Marvel comics)
Pairing/Characters: Jean-Paul Duchamp & Marlene Alraune
Rating: General
Content Notes: None!
Prompt: September Five - Jean-Paul Duchamp & Marlene Alraune - in the woods
Note: A companion piece to this one :)
"Mom! Uncle Frenchie! Look, no hands."
Diatrice, dangling by her knees from a high bough in the ancient leafy oak, dropped her hands to wave energetically down at the pair of them, her bright pink braid pointing down toward the ground far below. Marlene cringed at the distance she would drop if she fell. She opened her mouth to call for her to be careful and stop being reckless, but stopped herself just in time; being told not to do something instantly made that thing ten times more attractive to her child.
"Very good, ma mignonne," Frenchie called up to her, grinning. "I wonder, can you also swing from your hands all the way across the branch and back?" He turned to Marlene as Diatrice scrambled to do just that, and laughed at the expression on her face. "Ah, try not to fret, Marlene. I'm sure you worried your parents just as much at her age, and look how well you turned out."
"Of course I did." She kept her eyes firmly fixed on her daughter. "And now I feel like I owed them one huge apology for all the heart attacks Peter and I must've given them." He smiled and touched her arm, and they were quiet for a minute, watching her seven-year-old shimmy expertly along a sturdy bough. "She keeps asking to go into the city," she told him finally.
Frenchie nodded, unsurprised. "She asked me if I would take her yesterday."
Marlene sighed and crossed her arms over her chest. "I'm half convinced that if I tell her no, she'll just get on a bus and go by herself. She really wants to see him."
"I know." Frenchie put an arm around her shoulder and squeezed. "Diatrice is very like her mother: she's extremely bold and impossibly stubborn, she doesn't hear the word no, and she loves that man beyond all reason."
She half laughed, half winced at that assessment. "Ouch. But fair." Marlene tilted her head to keep Diatrice in her sights as she perched in the crook of a branch with her long legs dangling, peering at something in her hands. "I know you've been spending time with him since we came back. What do you think? Has he changed?"
"He is different," Frenchie answered slowly. "Perhaps as different as you and I are from the people we used to be. He's doing his own thing now, this Midnight Mission, and he's truly doing good for the people in his neighborhood, who love and trust him. He is undergoing therapy, and he has people around him. His assistant, Reese, is an exceptional young woman. I like her, and I think you would, too. And Diatrice would love his new house." He smiled like that was some private joke. "But he's still Marc, and Moon Knight, and Jake and Steven too. He'll always be complicated."
"I know. I know that." Marlene's heart ached just listening to Frenchie talk about him. She always ached thinking about her Steven, her Marc, even Jake. "And he'll always be dangerous."
He looked at her in that way he had sometimes that made Marlene remember he'd had years with Marc before she'd ever met him. He'd known this man longer than any person still living, and loved him for most of it. Frenchie had been just as dangerous as Marc when she'd met them, and for quite a long time afterward; it was easy to forget that, knowing him now.
"His life will always be dangerous. But life often is." Frenchie gave his most Gallic shrug. "She's your child, and it's your decision, Marlene. I can't tell you what to do—"
The crack of a tree branch overhead sent Marlene's heart flying into her throat. She looked up to see Diatrice hanging by one hand with something cradled to her chest in the other, dangling ten feet above the ground. Before she could move or say anything, Frenchie, with his agile speed despite the prosthetics and his excellent judgment of trajectories, was there to catch her daughter as she dropped, neatly as if they'd planned it.
Diatrice, bits of bark and leaf in her hair and completely unaware of the visions of broken bones dancing through her mother's head, grinned down at her godfather and opened her hand to show him a tiny nest. "Look what I found. There are broken egg shells in here. I wonder where the baby birds flew off to."
Frenchie lowered her to the ground and laid a hand on the top of her head. "Je sais pas, ma mie. But I think no more flying for you today." He caught Marlene's eye with a rueful smile and a shake of his head. "Let's go and find your mother a drink."