Chapter Text
"Seriously, who puts their secret evil lair in Canada?" complains Jake, using his cape to block a hail of bullets from some up-a-tower sniper. "How do they get enough guards who are willing to actually shoot people, instead of just askin' nicely if we wouldn't please be on our way?"
Kate leans around the Moon Knight cape and snipes the gunner right back. (Her quiver today has a bunch of paralyzing-nerve-gas arrows. She swears it wears off! Jake isn't planning to come back and check.)
"Do not underestimate Canadians!" laughs Yelena's new ex-Widow colleague, sprinting out from under the cover to deck a bad guy with almost superhuman speed. "We're not allowed to graduate high school unless we prove we know how to shank a polar bear!"
"...seriously?" asks Jake.
"How would I know? Kidnapped by evil Russians when I was in primary school, remember?"
Geez, combat prowess and careless wisecracks about immeasurable traumas? A girl after Jake's own heart.
...not like that. She's around Kate's age, barely old enough to drink, and Jake isn't some kind of cradle-robber here, okay? He just thinks she's neat.
"Thanks for asking so I didn't have to," says Kate under her breath, and shoots the door with a door-exploding arrow. (How she just carries that stuff around without blowing up herself, Jake doesn't know, and is kinda scared to ask.)
So they're in the middle of a good old-fashioned hallway fight -- with Yelena and the other ex-Widow leading the attack, Jake mostly blocking bullets, and Kate keeping her next round of trick arrows at the ready --
-- when one of the bad guys yells something in French, and the new girl's amazing rhythm is suddenly gone.
"Anyone catch that?" asks Kate.
Jake prods the inside of his head. The others weren't co-fronting that close, but maybe he'll get lucky. Steven! What did he say?
Don't know, love, I wasn't listening! thinks Steven...just as the younger ex-Widow bolts past them and makes a frantic dash for the exit.
Yelena curses in Russian. "Abort the mission," she orders in English. "I will calm her down. Kate Bishop, cover us! Moon Knight, you are the fastest -- make sure nobody can follow us, then catch up."
☽︎
They regroup in the shelter of a wood building that probably used to be some kind of service station...though it's been a hell of a time since anyone was here to get served. The thick walls are still standing, but the few remaining pieces of furniture are chipped and peeling. Windows are long gone. Floor is covered in a layer of forest litter, occasionally hidden under a drift of snow.
Jake keeps an eye out one window. Kate covers another. Yelena has all her focus on the other ex-Widow...
...who has all her focus on having some kind of panic attack. Hiding in the shelter of what probably used to be a desk, hugging the knees of her snazzy cold-weather suit (black with white trim, in contrast to Yelena's white-on-white), shaking from head to foot. Her long black hair, tied back to keep it out of her face but not in a tightly-braided style like Yelena's, is coming loose in shimmery waves.
"Be easy, Jeanne-Marie," urges Yelena, still in English. "We will not make you go back in there, I promise. Our pickup is on its way."
Kate catches Jake's eye, frowns, and whispers, "Aurora was a code name?"
All Jake can do is shrug. If Yelena didn't bother to catch Kate up on this, it's not like he was gonna get looped in.
Jeanne-Marie (?) says some panicky things in French -- Steven's listening for real this time, but it's too fast and too frantic for him to get more than scattered words -- then switches back to English, with a sudden strong French accent. "You should not 'ave taken me in zere in ze first place! You know 'ow I feel about zis!"
...okay, now Marc is listening too, present and hyper-alert. Team Moon Knight is all ears.
"Uh," says Kate. "Yelena, what's going on? You knew your friend might have a panic attack, and you figured you wouldn't tip us off ahead of time?"
"Not exactly, Kate Bishop."
"Is it a mind-control thing? Ooh, did that guy know some Red Room code words? I finally made a Red Dust arrow, if she needs another shot --"
"No more of ze Dust!" snaps the Canadian ex-Widow. "Je n'ai pas besoin d'aide. I am in my right mind now! More zan she ever is!"
Yelena sighs. "Someone will need to explain this to them, Jeanne-Marie. Would you like to do it, or shall I?"
"You may do it," says Jeanne-Marie, and presses her face into her knees.
You think she knows? asks Steven.
Yelena sits next to her friend, puts an arm around her shoulders, and looks at Kate. "You are aware that, when a person is in a traumatic situation, they may become so overwhelmed that they black out? They may continue to act on autopilot, but they will not remember it afterward."
She doesn't even glance at Jake.
She absolutely fucking knows, thinks Marc.
"It doesn't have to be trauma, though, right?" asks Kate. "I mean, I blacked out during my high school graduation. One minute I was waiting to have my name called, next minute, bam, I was on the other side of the stage and had the diploma already."
That sets off a wave of fuming from Marc -- god, I don't even remember most of high school, how can she compare -- but it gets drowned out by an urgent infodump from Steven.
"-- Kinda, yeah," says Jake out loud. "Totally different degrees, but, technically the same process? Think cutting yourself shaving, versus getting hacked at with a machete. What you got was the easy level -- the kind regular people go through every day, and shrug off, no problem. Harder levels, people don't just shrug off."
"This is a serviceable summary," agrees Yelena. From her, a compliment that direct is practically a trophy.
Still doesn't look at them. Not a flicker of surprise. Maybe that's just hardcore undercover-operative training at work, but Jake wouldn't bet on it.
"It will not surprise you that many products of the Black Widow program have experience with such blackouts. For Jeanne-Marie, it became too many. Autopilot alone was not enough to cover the gaps. She required...another person, to fill them in."
Kate frowns. "What, like, multiple personalities? I thought that turned out to be fake."
Jake takes a hit of nausea that the suit does nothing to block. Probably coming from all three of them at once...
"Many reports of alien encounters have turned out to be fake," says Yelena crisply. "This proves the Battle of New York never happened, you think?"
...Yelena is their new favorite Avenger.
"Right. Yeah. That makes sense," says Kate.
Just like that. Like it could be that easy.
The new Hawkeye sinks into a crouch in front of the two ex-Widows. She picks a good distance: close enough for them to hear when she talks gently, far enough that they're out of hitting range. "Sorry, Jeanne-Marie. Does that mean we never got introduced? I'm Kate. I already met your...uh..."
Jeanne-Marie lifts her head. She's got this striking face, sharp eyes framed by high cheekbones and arched brows; right now it makes her look like a furious elf queen. "My sickness. Ze symptom of how broken my childhood 'as left me."
Internally, Steven winces. Oh my days, they're in that stage.
"She seemed nice to me...?"
"Aurora is not nice!" explodes Jeanne-Marie. "None of you 'ave any idea what zis is like! I cannot control 'er, I cannot reason with 'er, sometimes I simply lose 'ole blocks of time with no idea what she 'as been up to, other times I wake up surrounded by bodies--"
"Goddammit, Belova," snaps Marc, "you couldn't have come up with one single less-stressful way to introduce us?"
Kate gapes at them, like she'd forgotten they were there. Jeanne-Marie gapes like she hadn't known they were there.
Yelena just looks smug. "No."
"Uh," says Kate. "What is happening?"
In a swirl of cape, Marc strides over and nudges Kate aside, dropping to kneel in her place.
"Hi," he says to Jeanne-Marie. "We haven't been introduced either. I'm Moon Knight. First one here to get the title."
Jake swaps in, uniform going dark around them. "I'm another Moon Knight. We try to keep one guy in front for each job -- I was the one on-schedule today."
Steven next, business suit flashing into place. "I'm the latest Moon Knight. And I am this head's resident expert in 'waking up surrounded by bodies because certain lawless vigilantes couldn't keep it together during a mission', so, if you want to have a sympathetic chat about that over a cup of tea? I'm your bloke."
Jeanne-Marie's eyes are wide under her sharp brows, like a hopeful pixie. "You are...?"
"Multiple," fills in Steven. "Plural. A system."
"Cheap to cook for," offers Jake. "Good at sharing clothes -- or we would be, if these idiotas had any style. Real happy to have magic shape-changing armor."
"Survivors," finishes Marc. "Like you."
The younger woman's eyes keep darting to their outfit as it changes, then back to their face. "Zere are...three of you? Not only two?"
"That's right," says Steven, adding an internal keeping it simple for now. They don't need to explain the nuances of how it's more like three-and-a-half...or point out that almost no system in the world is only two.
"...Do you 'ave to do ze different accents?"
In their head, Jake bursts out laughing. Next to them, Kate does the same.
"Oi!" yelps Steven. "As if Mademoiselle Suddenly La Plus Quebecoise has got any room to talk!"
☽︎
It isn't long before Duchamp responds to their emergency-pickup signal, and the stealth-cloaked jet gets close enough to hear.
"The pilot's a friend of ours -- and knows about us, so it's safe to keep the conversation going," explains Marc as he flies Kate up to the snow-covered roof. "Name of Jean-Paul Duchamp."
Jeanne-Marie's head whips up to stare at them. "Named what?"
"...Jean-Paul Duchamp?" Marc jumps back to the ground. "Do you know him...?"
"Bit similar to your name, innit?" adds Steven, volume rising against the noise of the engines. "Suppose that must have been a trend at some point. Although he's French-French, not French-Canadian, so..."
Jake switches in to fly Jeanne-Marie to the roof -- Yelena simply parkours herself up to join them -- but it's someone else who wrenches herself out of Jake's grip. "Wait -- is it over already? Did we win? Yelena, tell me we won!"
"Aurora," says Yelena, as if anyone could have missed the switch. The elfin-featured ex-Widow is standing straight and tall again, scanning the forest below them for leftover bad guys. "We have been having a lovely talk with Jeanne-Marie. You remember, I promised her I would cancel any mission if she was around."
"Well, she's not around anymore!" Aurora tosses her hair artfully out of her face. "Obviously! So un-cancel it!"
"Uh," says Jake. "Do you know why she left?"
"Who cares? Something gave the nun too many feelings, she checked out, what else is new."
A sturdy rope-and-metal rescue ladder drops out of (apparently) thin air. Aurora flinches away from it -- then takes a leap for the edge of the roof, already poised to tuck and roll with the landing.
Jake grabs her around the middle and hauls her back.
"Lemme guess," he says, using a harder-to-break hold this time. "She doesn't appreciate everything you do for her? Acts all superior and self-righteous, totally oblivious to how she'd be dead ten times over if you didn't have her back?"
She doesn't answer. On a hunch, Jake lets her go...and she doesn't bolt this time, just turns to look at him, striking face lit up in wonder. "It's like you know us."
"Join us on the jet, loquita." Jake waves to the ladder, which Yelena is already hassling Kate to start climbing. "We got a lot to talk about."
☽︎
"Soooo," summarizes Kate, once the Moon Knights finish recapping their situation for Aurora, "the different fighting styles are not a magic gift you were blessed with from the moon god Khonshu."
It's a small jet: twin-seat cockpit, two more seats behind it. Yelena gets the co-pilot's seat -- not that Duchamp needs the help, but if for some reason they need to make a quick switch, she's the best one to take over. Kate and Aurora get the other two.
"No," admits Steven, leaning over the seat-back between them. "That's just one of the many incredible made-up cover stories we throw around, because it's easier than trying to get people to believe we have a rare mental-health condition."
Kate flinches. "Sorry! I'm really sorry about that!"
"All right, enough with the apologies, ay?" says Jake. "Not like you're the only one who has trouble with the idea. We've got the thing, and one of us...ah...if we share first names, you gonna keep them under wraps?" To Aurora, he adds, "Won't make you promise on Jeanne-Marie's behalf, just yours." And to Kate, "Not a word, not even to Halcóncito."
Agreements all around.
"Cool. Okay. Steven -- he's the one in the CEO suit -- made it to his thirties convinced he was a singlet with a sleeping disorder."
Aurora frowns over her shoulder at him. "A what now?"
"Singlet...? Someone like this bunch." Marc gestures at the rest of the group. "People with one or fewer personalities."
"No offense to present company, naturellement," says Frenchie cheerfully.
"None taken. It is a good burn," agrees Yelena. "This is the right word for you, then? Personalities?"
Jake shoves back into the body and rolls his eyes. "You could just call us people."
Marc shoves him out again. "We know what you meant. Jake's just being a dick," he says lightly. "The medical term these days is 'alters'."
Ooh, Steven is not letting them leave it there. "But the one we usually use is 'headmates'."
Kate clamps down on some unspoken word with a tiny gasp.
Steven beams. "Yeah, all right, go ahead. Say it. You know you want to."
"Say what?" asks Yelena, brows furrowed.
"I don't need--" Poor Kate is turning red. "Look, a jet of mostly ESL people isn't gonna care -- even if it was that funny in the first place, which it isn't --"
"Say it anyway," says Jake with a grin. "Go for it."
Kate takes a deep breath, and blurts out, "Oh my god they were headmates!"
Jake gives her a high-five.
"So, uh -- do you know how -- how you got to be..." Aurora hesitates, weighing the different word options with unusual care...and, apparently, not liking any of them. "Y'know. Like this?"
It's a reasonable question, they're not offended by it -- at least, not when another system is asking -- but the suit flips around several times before Steven manages to hang on to the front. "In general, yes, we know. We're not going to get into the details."
"Oh, come on, like there's anything you could say that would surprise us. Raised by an international conspiracy of supervillains, remember?"
"Um," says Kate in a small voice. "I wasn't. Actually. I was raised by a couple of nice, loving, supportive parents. Am I the only one?"
Pointed silence in the jet.
"Look, this isn't actually about protectin' all your tender feelings, ay?" says Jake. "Maybe everyone in here would take it all in stride! Cool if you did. We still get to decide whether to talk about it or not. And right now, we're decidin' not."
"And you just...agree on these things?" Aurora is letting her hair down completely. Un-pinned, it falls to just below her shoulders in rich black waves. "You're all awake right now, all listening? Switching off who gets to speak, without even fighting about what to say?"
"Trust me, we didn't start out that way," says Marc dryly. "Lot of years went by when we blocked each other out completely. And even after we figured out how to communicate, getting this functional about it was...a process."
"Used to be some real screaming matches in here," agrees Jake. "One time Marc -- that's the one in the mummy suit -- threatened to throw us off a bridge so I wouldn't hit on someone."
"Another time Jake did throw me off a cliff when I told him he could hit on someone," counters Marc. "And before anyone thinks Steven's the pure cinnamon roll who would never -- he called me a parasite who ruined everything I touched."
"Excuse me, that was between the day when you got me fired, and the day when you punched me in the face!" exclaims Steven. "I was upset. I had a right!"
"Ay, cariño, seem to remember you whacking me in the face because I said another lady was prettier than your girlfriend."
"Yeah, but not hard!"
Yelena picks this moment to cut in: "How should the rest of us be picturing this, exactly?"
"Oh, from the outside this absolutely looks like one guy punching himself in his own face," sighs Marc.
(Some of their interactions are more complicated...but this is already enough of an infodump without unpacking their time in the Duat, let alone the still-partly-a-psych-ward inner world it left in their head. Maybe they'll talk about it with Aurora and/or Jeanne-Marie later.)
All that, and we didn't even get to the telenovela's worth of polycule drama, thinks Jake.
Marc's face-punch was sort of polycule drama? reflects Steven.
Was not, huffs Marc. Look, I know I had some denial about when we started being in a polycule, but it wasn't that early.
Out loud, he says, "The point is -- we don't do it anymore, okay? This is all stuff we've worked through."
"It was work, for sure," adds Jake, turning to Aurora. (He thinks it's still Aurora -- she's got a smile just this side of being a smirk, while Jeanne-Marie didn't smile at all.) "And I'm not gonna pretend we never argue about anything anymore. But we're in a really good place now. You guys could get there too."
The smirk falters. "Cute. But don't hold your breath."
☽︎
Yelena calls for reinforcements, to take another run at the base -- but between the size of the continent and the storm clouds on the horizon, they won't be able to rendezvous until tomorrow.
For tonight, they park the plane at a small local airport a few hundred miles south, then head into town (on three rented motorbikes, Marc riding behind Duchamp, Aurora behind Yelena) for Timbits and poutine. In case the scene wasn't Canadian enough already, a flatscreen on the wall is playing the tryouts for the Olympic ski team.
They settle into a booth, men on one bench, women on the other. "So is this, like...four on each side?" asks Kate, after counting them up.
"Oh, it is!" exclaims Steven, actually clapping. "How lovely."
Yelena raises her eyebrows. "I guess, in each group, we now know who is the cute one."
"What does that make the rest of us?" asks Jake.
"Mm!" Kate quickly swallows a mouthful of donut. "I nominate Yelena for the 'stab first, ask questions later' one."
"Jake," chorus Duchamp and Steven.
"No, that's me," says Aurora. "Yelena is the 'has a plan, it may or may not involve stabbing, but she will be very bossy about exactly when you do it' one."
"Marc," chorus Duchamp and Jake.
Aurora throws an over-the-top pained look at Frenchie. "Oh no, does that make you the Jeanne-Marie? You don't seem like the uptight fun-hating one."
That summons Steven to the rescue. "All right, I know we didn't meet her for long," he allows, stirring one of his fries in gravy. (He doesn't insist the others keep vegan when they're co-fronting, but he will not personally be the headmate who puts cheese in their mouth.) "But if she's the 'gets upset about her body being dragged into danger and combat without her permission' one, I think that's me."
"Oh, it's not just the combat," sighs Aurora. "Jeanne-Marie hates parties, she hates fun, she hates relaxing with a few drinks, she hates wearing nice outfits, she hates making out with hot guys..."
Do we think it would help if we walked them through how we worked out our hookup rules? wonders Steven.
"Not that anyone has to like making out with guys," puts in Kate.
Too soon, babe, thinks Marc. I get wanting to let other people learn from our mistakes, but we still barely know these two. Boundaries.
"Oh, but she calls it succumbing to temptation." The line comes out in a sarcastic imitation of her headmate's French accent; she raps her knuckles lightly on her head. "Mother Theresa in here thinks the only moral setup is to find a nice monogamous choirboy, kisses allowed but no tongue until marriage, and then no sex unless she's ready to carry a series of good Christian babies."
That gets Yelena visibly concerned. "Is she...not aware...?"
"...that the Red Room yanks out all the plumbing? The little idiot has no idea."
Steven manages not to choke on his cafe mocha, but only just. He hadn't known about it. Did we know about that...?
Jake hadn't known, but has a sudden feeling like he should've already worked it out. He pulls Steven back from the body for an incorporeal hug, as much for his own comfort as anything else. Yeah, we are not qualified to have a frank sex talk with a survivor of a place where "making sure nobody can accidentally get our kidnapped girls pregnant" is SOP.
Which leaves Marc to put down the coffee and say to Yelena, in his serious voice, "Please don't feel like you have to make sure she finds out, okay? Don't hide the information if she asks, but when someone in a system has a mental block against knowing something...there can be a good reason."
Aurora raises her sharp eyebrows. "You really have that 'solemn, tortured, broody-eyed hero' look down, huh. How do you feel about tongue before marriage?"
"Already married," says Marc without missing a beat. "Sorry to disappoint."
(Internally, he thinks, New rule? -- and gets showered in agreement from Jake and Steven before he even has a chance to put it into words. Even if she was closer to their age, none of them want to get involved with someone who has a headmate they know wouldn't approve.)
"Aw." Not particularly heartbroken, she turns to Frenchie. "What about you?"
"Desolé, mademoiselle." Duchamp raises his own coffee to her in a friendly toast. "I am afraid my making-out proclivities run to 'hot guys' exclusivement."
"Really? Ooh. Fine by me, but don't bring that up in front of Jeanne-Marie, unless you want a lecture about how immoral you are too. ...Hey, what was your name? Forgot, sorry."
"No offense taken. People who struggle with names are in the habit of calling me 'Frenchie'," says Duchamp. "But 'Jean-Paul' will do, when you remember."
Kate suggests that maybe she and Duchamp are both The Normal One, or at least The Comparatively Normal One. Frenchie makes a crack about how that isn't hard, and they're all deep into a round of friendly banter when Aurora slips out of the booth without a word, heading for the restrooms.
☽︎
Yelena leaves the booth without a word as well, and returns alone, with a look on her face that tells Marc and company all they need to know.
"She is gone," she reports, dropping a comms earpiece on the table. "Left this in the waste bin."
Kate looks horrified. "Oh nooo."
"Was this still Aurora, do we think?" asks Duchamp. "Attempting to resume the mission? Or did Jeanne-Marie return, and attempt to escape us bunch of lawless vigilantes?...and Miss Bishop?"
"Both are entirely precedented," sighs Yelena. "This is...a more remote area than I have lost them in before...but both of them are resourceful, and stubborn. Typically, they are fine. And they did not abscond with a bike, so they cannot have gotten far, yet. Jean-Paul Duchamp: your honest assessment of how easily your jet could be stolen?"
"Not unless either of the young ladies is magic."
"Okay, yeah, but -- it doesn't have to be one of the ones we've met," points out Jake. "You never know when there's gonna be a secret third guy. Or what special abilities they could be sitting on."
"It could also be a headmate who has amnesia for everything that's going on," adds Steven. "Wandering around, not even sure what country they're in, totally confused."
"Or something could've pushed them into a fugue state," finishes Marc. "Where there's not really anybody at the wheel."
Yelena gives the Moon Knights a piercing look. "I take it these are not just dramatic hypotheticals."
"Not a one."
"All right. Then we search." As the others get to their feet, she turns to Frenchie. "Jeanne-Marie sometimes has trouble with English. She prefers to take refuge in churches. Is this acceptable to you?"
"Pas de souci."
"I will search for Aurora. Kate Bishop, you must wait here, in case one of them returns." (Kate sinks back onto the bench.) "And you..." She frowns at Marc and company. "How should I address you? With all three names?"
"We all answer to 'hey you' pretty well," says Marc. "Let me guess. You want us airborne."