Work Text:
There’s a knock on your door when you finally get your bearings straight.
Your eyes flit around the apartment after the wormhole spits you back out, trying to make out the dim shapes to see if it holds any semblance of what your place looked like before you had a one-way ticket to the cosmos. The knocking breaks your reverie, and you wonder who it could be at—you squint at the clock in the corner—6 PM on a—you squint even further to see the date on the nearby calendar—Saturday evening.
You sigh heavily. You don’t need visitors right now—you need to try to understand what’s going on and find Mark. A cursory glance around the apartment reveals it’s a bust—it’s a totally random place you dropped into—and the knocks start up again, gentle but persistent.
Your eyebrows pinch, and you start to make your way to the door, yanking it open to find—
Mark. In a suit. Smiling. Holding something behind his back.
Immediately, you’re on guard, but then he opens his mouth, throwing you for a loop.
“Bonjour. I got you something:” —and he brings whatever it is from behind him, your body tensing for a moment— “roses. So good to see you again. I can’t wait for our second date.”
You feel yourself reeling back. Second date?
“...E-excuse me?” You don’t even remember there being a first one.
A thought strikes you. This isn’t the first time you’ve heard Mark talking to you about taking you on a date; in fact, it’s happened across quite a few of the universes the portable temporal displacement device has had you jump into. He’d never really followed up on it, and you were too busy with Lady running around trying to hunt you down, but…you think it’d be nice.
You never get the chance to say yes, no matter how badly you want to. You don’t even think that it’d be allowed in your original universe, given your positions.
The multiverse could crash down on you at any moment—why not take him up on his offer?
But in this timeline, this version of you got the chance to experience a first date with Mark. And he liked the date enough to try to do a second one with you. Sure, you may not ever know what happened in the first one, but he wanted to see you again. He wanted to spend more time with you. He even got you flowers—you don’t remember the last time someone ever gave you any.
If this version of Mark was willing to keep dating, then…who’s to say yours wouldn’t want to try?
You open your mouth to repeat his words. “Second…date?”
Mark’s shoulders droop. “I know that our first one got a little away from us, but—” his eyes light up, and it’s filled with so much hope and genuine excitement that it saps any remaining apprehension— “this one will be so much better.”
You nod slowly. “I…see.” A small smile forms on your face. Fuck it. Why not? “What’d you have in mind?”
“We could go see a movie, or ride roller coasters. Or pretty much whatever you want—”
Mark suddenly phases out with a corrupted glitch, and in his stead is…Mark. In a delivery uniform. Holding a pizza box over…
Over…
Your eyes trace down to where the box is conveniently displayed over his crotch. You blink at the box, then up to his face. Heat rises to your cheeks.
“Did someone order a large pizza?” He stresses the words unnecessarily. He glances down to the box and up in your eyes suggestively, and he puts his hands on his hips, leaving the box hovering. He’s not even wearing pants. “Extra…pepperoni?”
He wiggles his eyebrows in a comedically suggestive manner.
You feel a neuron in your brain explode at the sight of a pantsless Mark in a delivery uniform, giving you horrible pun-filled pick-up lines at six in the evening on a Saturday night.
“So,” he says in the same cheesy-smooth voice, and you literally have no clue where to look, “are you all alone? The pizza isn’t gonna…eat itself.” He goes for an approximation of a wink, accidentally blinking instead, and against your better judgment, you huff out a laugh. The action rushes forth a wave of fondness so strong that it makes you miss your Mark. And then you recoil in the strangeness of it all, the shock overpowering the fondness. You open your mouth in response before he glitches and this time, it’s Mark in a suit from before, except he’s now carrying a teddy bear.
“I’ve got tonight all planned out,” he says, as if continuing from where he left off. You’re starting to clue into the fact that something may be very, very wrong. “We can go to the carnival! And share cotton candy. And maybe even hold hands.” He gives you the same starry-eyed hopeful expression, and you don’t have enough time to process the whiplash before—
“I hear your plumbing’s clogged,” the man holding a large, rusty pipe wrench greets you. He’s got a handlebar mustache and he’s chewing gum. “Mind if I, uh, inspect your pipe?”
Your mind boggles at the weirdly easy confidence he exudes. “My…my pipe?”
He blows a bubble and lets it pop. None of it gets on his mustache. He maintains intense eye contact, and you feel your already warm cheeks get even hotter. “...Yeah.”
“Uh.” Your throat’s suddenly dry. “I—”
The scene glitches back to Mark in his suit, and he’s holding a puppy, but before you could register what he was even saying, the scene glitches once again, and he appears before you wearing a doctor’s coat, stethoscope, an ostensible head lamp and…not much else.
This Mark is cocky. Aggressively cocky. It’s evident by the self-assured smirk he gives you, and you sigh in resignation at an incoming pick-up line that you’re hoping won’t be as bad as the last one. He stares you down as intensely as the plumber did. “I’m writing you a prescription that you’re gonna need to take several times a day.”
Please don’t say it’s your dick, you think to yourself.
“Hah,” he gestures down, “it’s my—”
Suit Mark appears. “Kitty!”
A goddamn lumberjack phases in place and clicks his tongue. “Wink.”
You step back from the door with the amount of changes in the timeline, head reeling from all of the variants presented to you.
The device is fucking up. You slap it a couple of times, but it doesn’t do anything. You don’t know if it’s a result of the warp crystal trying to flip through all of the universes to find the one where you left your Mark, trying to speed up the process so that the paradox can be resolved, or if it’s genuinely malfunctioning. You haven’t come across Bandit yet, so you can’t even ask them what the hell was wrong with it.
Too many questions are circling around your head. You feel like you’ve been displaced since the very beginning. Mark, as soon as you landed on the Invincible II, felt like someone you’d met ages ago, in a different lifetime.
That meeting was the first time you’d seen him. It also boggled you when he said, “Just like old times, eh Captain?”
Nothing is going right. Not one universe has appeared to be correct in any way. This paradox bullshit was giving you a massive headache, and you don’t even know how long it’s been happening.
A lifeguard glitches in. He’s got on tight red swimming trunks. You pointedly look away from his nether regions.
Suit Mark tries handing you two wine bottles. You don’t get a chance to read either of them before a crossing guard is before you, holding a ‘stop’ sign and holding a hand out. You tilt your head to the side. Why is this version even here? Where does he think you’re going that you need to stop where you are? And why is he shirtless again?
The crossing guard flips the sign to ‘come’, and you roll your eyes at his smug nod. This must have been some punishment for you in a past life. Or another universe. However the hell it worked now.
The lifeguard asks you if you’re ready to get wet. You don’t even get to say that there’s no beach or pool anywhere in the vicinity before the world crashes around you and you’re sucked into a swirl of blue, the warp crystal snatching you away from your suitors.
With your life the way it is now, you don’t even try to fight it. You kind of missed the version of Mark in his nice suit and the bouquet roses he got you—he looked prepared for the evening, ready to take you out for a nice time. A heavy weight bogs down your heart, and you really wish you could have made the second date with him.
For now, you focus on the task at hand. You have to find your head engineer and fix this mess that the two of you apparently started. And then, maybe, if he doesn’t hate you after all of this, maybe you can bring up the possibility of a date. Just to see what it’s like.
The next time you see your Mark, after everything, when the crew and colonists have settled, and you think you finally have time to sit down and talk to him—
He knocks on the door of your quarters.
It’s a little funny, how much the glitching suitors in one universe have etched themselves in your memory. Every single one, each uniquely dressed, each with their own terrible pickup lines, each doing their best to seduce you. In hindsight, the only one who really did earn your hand was Mark in the suit, since he was the one who asked you out in the first place. What-could-have-beens were always your weak point.
When you open your door, the head engineer has his hands shoved in his pockets, looking sheepish. He’s dressed down in a white shirt and fatigues, and his hair is slicked back, wet from a shower. Strangely enough, he reminds you of another man, sporting tattoos and a striped uniform, in another lifetime.
But you can’t help comparing the sight to the suitors, and his appearance makes your heart do silly little flips. At least he’s not giving you a come-on.
A smaller voice pipes up with, At least he’s clothed.
Your eyes stray to his bare arms, muscular and toned, and you have to flick them up to meet his, berating yourself for looking. It’s rare that your engineer is dressed like this. You mentally tell yourself that you’re allowed to be slightly surprised by the turn of events.
He clears his throat. “Hi. Um. The crew told me you hadn’t gone to the mess hall to eat yet. I was wondering, if, uh…” he waffles a bit putting his words together, and when he’s finally able to speak, it’s a rush of, “D’youwannagetdinner?”
You blink.
He clears his throat again. “Do you wanna get dinner?”
“Dinner?”
He nods.
The suitors flash by in the back of your mind again. It’s no pick-up line—just a simple question posed by your head engineer. The warmth that had risen in your cheeks remains at bay, and you sigh silently through your nostrils.
“Ah,” you glance back to where you had crackers and a hastily wrapped block of cheese on your dining table laid out. You’d been feeling sluggish all day and hadn’t wanted to leave your room. “Real food would be amazing right now.”
The corner of his lips quirks up, and it changes his sheepish expression. “There’s something really good in the kitchen tonight. Chef says it’s your favorite.”
“I have a lot of favorites that Chef makes,” you say mildly, grabbing a jacket from the hook next to the door and stepping out. You’re dressed down too, in a comfortable shirt and sweats. However, it gets cold in the base where the crew lives. Mark did a good job of creating insulation against the planet’s abysmal heat and humidity. “I guess I’ll just have to get there and see what it is.”
He hums, shoving his hands in his pockets, and you two fall into step with each other all the way to the mess.
You’re surprised when there’s nobody in the large space. Some crew members stay in the mess until midnight, but tonight, it’s dead. The only thing you can hear is the hum of the lights (half of which are off and give an ambient glow, you notice with a raised brow) and the kitchen through the open partition.
There is, however, a table with two chairs in the middle of the room where two white dinner plates are set. A small, lit candle is in between. You glance at Mark. There are very, very different vibes at work here.
He coughs, not meeting your eyes. “Come on,” he says, “You go ahead and sit down. I gotta pull the food from the kitchen.”
“O…kay?” you watch him leave, shoulders hunched up to his ears. You tilt your head in amusement and sit down like he said, noticing more details about the space around you.
The dinner plates have intricate designs along the rim. They’re definitely not the ones used by the kitchen, because everyone gets their food ladled onto a tray. The utensils are different, too—there’s a weight to them that the flimsy cafeteria ones don’t have.
Interesting.
Two wine glasses appear on your table, followed by Mark hefting a bottle and two delicious-smelling platters of—
“Holy shit,” you exclaim softly, eyes widening at the spread in front of you. “That is my favorite.”
There’s a small, proud smile on Mark’s lips as he pops the cork off of the wine bottle, pouring a generous amount in both glasses. “Help yourself.”
“I definitely will,” you nod, ladling one of the dishes onto your plate and handing it off to him. He takes it and watches raptly, closely, as you take the first bite, and the resounding noise of approval you make has him grinning from ear to ear.
“You like it?”
“It’s fucking delicious,” you say, mouth full, digging into the meal. “Chef doesn’t normally make it like this.”
His expression becomes smug. “That’s because I made it.”
You gape at him, and then down at your plate. “You lied to me.”
“I never said Chef made them.”
Your laughter is loud, but not jarring. You swallow and cover your mouth with your hand, clearing your throat. “Alright, alright. You know I would have eaten anything you made.”
Another small smile. It’s seldom that you see it on him—repairing your friendship has been one of the hardest things you’ve ever had to do. And you traveled through the multiverse.
But you think things are okay right now. At this moment, having dinner with Mark, where he cooked you one of your favorite dishes, where he invited you to sit and enjoy a nice meal, where the ambience and mood has been set to something intimate—it’s a good place to be.
The candle flickers, dancing slow and languid.
“This kind of feels like a date,” you joke, taking another mouthful, and immediately you pause mid-chew.
What the hell is wrong with you? Did you really just say that? You idiot, you don’t even know if this was his intention—he literally only invited you to dinner—
“Technically, it’s our second,” he shrugs.
In your haste to appear normal and like you didn’t just insinuate that you and your head engineer were on a romantic candlelit dinner, you nod, wiping your mouth with a napkin.
Wait.
Your head whips up, and as if he just realized what he said, visibly hunches in, trying to make himself look smaller than he actually is.
“Wh— Do you—” a hand flies to your mouth. Oh god. You struggle to swallow. “Mark.”
He plays with his food, staring resolutely at the plate.
“Mark.”
“Captain.”
You stare at him incredulously. “What—why did you say that?”
“Well,” and then he stops, contemplating his answer. Was there a chance—?
“Do you remember—”
“Actually, I—”
The two of you interrupt each other, and Mark sits back in his chair, looking as if he wants to be anywhere else but there.
“Go ahead,” you say listlessly. Your mind is spinning in circles now.
It takes him a long time to say anything. The light flickers, shadows dancing across his pensive face.
“There’s…a lot. That I remember. About the warp core.”
A sharp inhale. You slowly let it out through your nose. Your heart rate amps up, blood rushing past your ears and to your head.
The warp core wasn’t something you readily talked about. There was a vague mention of it, once, when you exited the cryopod for the last time, but as far as you knew, he didn’t bring it up, and neither did you.
When else would you have had the chance?
Mark continues, “There’s a lot of things that I regret. And there’s a lot of things I wasn’t strong enough to talk to you about right away, in the aftermath.”
You swallow nervously. “Why do you say that?”
He plays with a loose thread on the hem of his shirt. “I didn’t think you’d want to talk to me. Or have anything to do with me.”
When you don’t speak, he dares to glance up. “It was my fault. And...there is nothing I can do for the rest of my life to atone for what I did.”
The silence stretches on, and with a shaky voice, you whisper, “Didn’t you think…that I would have wanted to talk to you about it in the first place?”
At your statement, he looks taken aback. “Captain?”
“Didn’t you think…that I wanted to make sure things were alright between us? Us, Mark.” Your brows scrunch, and there’s a familiar stinging behind your eyes, one that you associated with at the end of every single failed attempt to save lives. “You and I were probably the only ones to know what really happened. All those universes. Didn’t you think I bore the weight of that, too?”
His expression is downcast. He’s silent for a few minutes, and you can see minor twitches in his face where it looks like he’s about to gear up to say something, but then immediately shuts it down.
All you wanted to do was talk to him. Well, here you go.
“I’m sorry,” he rasps. “It was hard to approach you. I didn’t know when it would be the right time.”
Your fists clench on the table. “The time wouldn’t have mattered if it meant talking to you about it, Mark.”
At that, he looks up. You don’t know what your face looks like, but his eyes flick away and he swallows hard.
“All I can say is that I’m sorry. For everything. I trusted you, and I guess over time, when nothing changed, when all I could hear was Lady’s voice in my head saying that you were the one who caused… everything …that trust started breaking down.
“And I didn’t know what to believe anymore. I just wanted it to be over with. I was so, so tired. And then you showed up, in that room I was in, and all of my frustrations just let out. And then I…” He reaches over, hesitantly, to grasp your left fist, and slowly, you unfurl it to show the scar from the warp crystal. It was nothing more than a raised lump of mass, but Mark strokes over it with a feather-light touch and it sends a spark running up your forearm. “I took this out of you. I caused you a lot of pain. I heard you scream and it didn’t even faze me.”
Your lips flatten into a thin line, but you feel your gaze soften. It’s absentminded, the delicate way he traces the outline.
He sighs. “You lost my trust in the time I was in the warp core room, but I think I lost yours long before that.”
Something stings behind your eyes. You fight to keep the tears from shedding, and you use your free hand to hold his own down onto the one with the scar. His thumb presses hard against it, and it’s the most contact you’ve had from him in months. Years. Decades. An eternity.
“No,” you mumble, watching how your hands intertwine. “No, never.”
Mark makes a small noise, and you glance up to see him staring where you’re connected. “I find that hard to believe, Captain.”
“...I didn’t let go, did I?”
He meets your gaze, jaw working.
You squeeze his hand. “I didn’t let go. And now we’re here, in a beautiful colony that you designed, and we’re surviving. Our people are prospering, babies are on the way, and we’re making headway with neighboring cities. Things are going well for us, and you spearheaded the majority of that.”
Mark’s face crumples, and he ducks his head. “Captain,” his voice hitches, “Captain, I’m sorry, I don’t deserve—”
“Enough of that,” and your voice is gentler than it has been all night. “Mark, you didn’t know. I didn’t know. I found you and I didn’t let go and we’re here. If I didn’t then, I would have still kept looking. I would’ve found my way to you one way or another.”
He rests his other hand on top of yours. There’s a sniffle, and he picks his head up, eyes red. “You would’ve kept looking?”
“Of course. Always.”
Something passes behind his eyes, and there’s a lighter look about his face. Less strained than it was before.
Your eyes dart down to the food. “We should eat this before it gets cold. It’s so good, and you spent all that time making it.”
He lets out a huff, and slowly, the two of you separate hands. He picks up his utensils, and you pick up yours, and you begin eating again in silence, but there’s less tension.
“It does feel like a date, though,” you murmur a few minutes later, and Mark huffs again, the corner of his mouth giving way to a lopsided smirk.
“Wasn’t intentional,” he says. “I really did want to see if you wanted to eat dinner. Also because we hadn’t really had a chance to catch up in a while.”
You hum, taking another bite. “But you said this was technically our second date. Meaning you remember the first one.”
“Vaguely.” There’s a flush on his face when he says it, and something clicks in your brain.
“Wait. Wait, Mark. Do you—do you remember the second one?”
“There was no second one,” he mumbles. “But I do remember the, uh—the different ‘me’s. Asking you out.” He grimaces. “That’s not quite the phrase for it, but yeah. I do.”
Your jaw is agape. He looks mortified and like he wants to be anywhere else but in this moment.
“You remember. The—the different ‘you’s. You remember that. How do you even remember that?”
He heaves out a sigh.
“The. The crossing guard sign.”
He closes his eyes, cringing.
“The plumber.”
A scrunch of the nose.
“The lifeguard,” you lean back in your seat, throwing your head back. “God. That felt like a fever dream.” You tilt your chin down. “Why were there so many scandalous versions of you?”
He opens one eye. “What?”
“Mark,” you level a look, “the pizza man was definitely not there to just deliver pizza.”
“Well,” he says in a slightly accusatory tone, “from what I recall, you weren’t complaining all that much.”
And now it was your turn for your face to feel warm, but you don’t let it faze you. Much.
You clear your throat. “It was pretty funny,” you continue, grabbing your fork and twirling the noodles. “I don’t know what that universe was thinking, but. It was pretty funny.”
“It was funny seeing me do cringy pick-up lines?”
“Maybe,” you say lightly. “You never do that, normally.”
“But they were so bad,” he groans, leaning back in his seat. You laugh at the face he makes, and he stares at you for a long moment.
You shrug, fighting off a smile. “Some of them were okay.”
“No they weren’t! Pizza me had a dick in the box but it wasn’t even that! It was just—it was just taped to the boxers!”
“I liked the plumber,” you mused. “And maybe the lifeguard.”
“What, ‘ready to get wet?’ did it for you?”
You start laughing uncontrollably, and he watches with something akin to awe.
It’s nice. You hadn’t laughed in a long time. You stifle your giggles, though, and take a sip of your wine. “What the hell, Mark. What. The. Hell.”
You clear your plates, but at the end of it, Mark clears his throat. “Captain.”
“Hmm?”
“This might be a little presumptuous, but—go on a date with me.”
You blink at him. He’s determined and serious and nothing like the suitors from that universe. You bite the inside of your cheek. “But I just did.”
“No,” he shakes his head, smiling. “An actual one. Where I get to blow your mind away. And without the use of euphemisms.”
You take his hand, still on the table, and squeeze it. “I’ll take you up on that action.”