#d:marcus

{Adding the +1 because I can}

1st time (or the time Aspen flirted with another guy)

Marcus knew that they were supposed to be in a fight, and he knew that he was supposed to give Aspen space, and he knew that she had the right to be mad at him (he was a jerk, after all, not like he wanted to, it just happened. He blamed his father’s genes) but she was absolutely not supposed to be flirting with one of his coworkers to get back at him. 

Passive-aggressive post its in the fridge? He could take those. Angry hurtful words thrown like knives? He could move past them. Thrown high heels? He was rather good at evading those. But seeing her lick her lips as she seductively spoke to the idiot from the Nuclear department had him fuming in a second, too aware of the memory of Veronica cheating on him, and somehow the idea of Aspen doing so hurting him even more. Slamming his mug into the floor he managed to startle the couple, and Aspen’s guilt-flooded worried eyes where the last thing he saw as he stormed out of the room.

2nd time (or the first time Aspen walked out in the midst of an argument)

“That gives you no fucking right, Marcus!” Aspen spat at him, the couple had just moved in together, and if Marcus was being perfectly honest to himself, for the love of Pythagoras he could not remember what the hell they were fighting about. What he did remember was rolling his eyes at the girl, and the sound of the slammed door that seemed to echo in the apartment for hours after she left. He remembered the glass of scotch he had filled and later slammed against the closed door when she didn’t come back by midnight. 

He remembered wanting to hate her for not fighting for him, for them. He remembered not being able to.

3rd time (or the time Aspen failed to mention her friend was gay)

If he fucking dares wrap his arm around her waist I swe- he did it. I’m going to kill him, I’m going to fucking kill him. What? kissing her cheek too? For the love of Newton’s fucking underwear, Aspen, what the fuck? Oh, so you are kissing his cheek back, how sweet. Well, let’s see if you find the couch sweet enough because you are fucking sleeping there tonight. 

“Oh, yes. It was a pleasure.” Marcus said, shaking a bit too hard the hand that wasn’t wrapped around his girlfriend, same hand that was getting dangerously close to her ass. And then he slapped it. And Aspen just laughed. 

“It was terribly fun guys, maybe one day I can get my boyfriend to come along and we’ll all hang out together?” Baffled, Marcus nodded and then accompanied Aspen to the car, pulling his hand off hers when she tried to link their fingers. 

“For future reference, Mellark: next time you are going to let a guy fucking grope you in front of me you might as well tell me he is gay.” And slamming the door of the car closed he walked off rambling as he tried to light a cigarette. 

4th time (or the one time Aspen stood him up)

“I promise mom, she is real.” He swore for the umpteenth time, causing his sister to giggle, but one glare of the physicist shut her up. The man was not usually rude to his sister (she was the light of his eyes after all) so she slowly realized how upset he was with each moment he spent watching through the window without spotting Aspen’s car on the road. 

The hours went by and the party soon died off, Marcus kissed his mother’s cheek and hugged his sister tightly. The conversation he had had with the two of them days before echoing on his mind as he turned on both the ignition and a cigarette, ignoring the fact the car would smell like tobacco whenever Aspen entered it again (that is if she bothered in calling him, or waiting him home). “So, I have a girlfriend, and I know it’s… shocking, and that I swore I would never fall in love again but I think she is the one and I want you guys to meet her, so can she come to Aunt Viv’s  birthday on Tuesday?” Marcus remembered the shock in both the women’s faces, the happiness afterwards, the eagerness on meeting the girl that had finally managed to get Marcus to open up again, the disappointment when she didn’t show up, the pity on their faces when he sighed as the last guest left. 

“Your shit better be out of the fucking apartment when I get there.” He spat into the phone after answering to Aspen’s call. Without giving her time to reply he threw the phone out the window, hitting the gas. 

5th time (or the time Marcus forgot it was April’s Fools when he proposed)

He had imagined various scenarios for what would happen after he popped the question, he had included the positive scenarios in which Aspen cried, threw herself into his arms, repeated ‘yes’ various times before chuckling, kissing him, undressed him right there in the spot or all of the before. Marcus had also considered the not so pleasant alternative in which she froze, walked away or told him she was just not ready. 

He never imagined she’d laugh. The ring he had carefully chosen for her turned a million times heavier in his jacket’s pocket as Aspen held her belly, laughing her freaking ass off. “That’s a good one, Marc. Jeez, I should have thought of something better.” She said, wiping a few tears the laughter had brought up. The mathematician thought of all the hours he had spent planning the way he’d pop the question, the million times he had rehearsed going down in one knee before deciding against it because it was too clichéd, he thought about the (now stupid) amount of money he had spent on the ring she had just laughed about. 

Pulling his hand off her shoulders , Marcus walked away from Aspen tossing the box angrily onto the park’s floor. He ignored Aspen calling out his name, and he tried to ignore her throwing the box onto his head as she explained herself.

“It’s April’s Fools, you idiot. You… you can’t fucking propose on April’s Fools.”

+1 (or the time Marcus turned around because he didn’t care if he hated her)

The explanation fell like a ton of bricks on his head, and he cursed himself for not being more careful when it came to the date. He just liked the first day of the month, it was always a good day to try something new, like getting married. He had just forgotten the awful tradition of stabbing everyone you knew in the back just for fun. 

With barely a few steps between them, Marcus realized the distance was too much, and he couldn’t bring himself to take another step, risking losing her forever. Turning around to see her admiring the ring, Marcus knelt down to pick the box, and when he looked up she was wiping the tears from her eyes, chuckling. “What’s the point on kneeling now that I have the ring, silly?”

“Bloody Einstein, Aspen. Do you have to ruin everything?” He asked exasperated, chuckling himself as he stood. 

“Yes.”

“To what question?”

∞  my muse comforts yours when they receive bad news (I didn’t know what news to give him, this is trash i’m sorry)

“What do you mean she…” 

Aspen looked up to see Marcus sitting down on the bed, she had never seen that expression on the mathematician’s face before. His eyes open as if they were never going to blink again, his mouth open as if all the words had been snatched off him. “I… I will mum, I will make this right I promise.” He stuttered, listening to the loud voice on the other side of the line. Finally, his blue eyes closed and he dropped the phone on the floor when the line went dead, he buried his face in his hands, pulling his hair. 

“Babe?” Aspen called, entering the room. But he didn’t move.

Kneeling in front of him, the girl grabbed his husband’s hands to move them off his face, he offered no resistance, but the despair on his face made Aspen wish she hadn’t pulled them away. “Marcus, what’s wrong?” She asked, worriedly. 

The man that has a joke for everything, the man who hates not having the last word, the man that can talk for hours about anything, is at a loss on what to say to his own wife, and it takes him a long time to put the two words together. “She’s gone.”

By a simple elimination, Aspen knew he must have been talking about his sister Madeline, the mathematician only had three women in the world he cared about. “What do you mean she is gone?” She asked, completing the sentence he had left halfway when the same news were delivered to him. 

The next words came in quickly, but just as desperate. “S-she ran away… she left a note, she just…. left. She is only sixteen, Aspen! And mum thinks she left with her girlfriend, and you know her Aspen, she is a bad influence. What if she hurts her? She is gone, Aspen. And it’s my fault.”

The words his mother had spoken echoed on his mind as he bit his lip hard, drawing out blood as he battled the tears. She wrote in her note she was just following your steps, she said she was just going to find out who she was like you did. She left because you taught her how. 

It isn’t until Aspen carefully gets him to stop biting his lip that he feels the tears start falling, and with it Aspen’s comfort. “We’ll find her babe, we’ll find her. We leave to England in the morning, it will be okay.”

Marcus hated bowties, ties were more his thing but Aspen had insisted  and seeing that the girl had planned every second of their wedding, the same wedding she had been dreaming of ever since she was a little girl, the mathematician knew he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he ruined any of the details she had planned for their wedding. “Bloody hell.” He cursed, undoing the tie for the umpteenth time and considering the embarrassing possibility of calling his sister for help. 

“I hope you don’t curse that way in front of Aspen, young man.” Marcus’ face shot up, seeing Mr. Mellark reflected on the mirror before him, doing his best to keep a straight face (if he was being honest the man terrified him, he knew how much he would despise any man who dared propose to his sister and god forbid someone touched his future daughter. He imagined the man behind him felt  the same way about him. )

“Here.” The man threw him something, a mock bow tie which he just needed to wrap around his neck, the mathematician felt stupid but caught it anyway. “Thanks sir.” He said as he fastened the tie around his neck. 

Marcus shifted his feet, wondering if he should compliment on the man’s suit (”very nice suit sir, very… black”) or maybe crack a joke, but he couldn’t think of anything, so he just waited for the man to speak his mind on what brought him to the groom’s suite minutes before the wedding. 

“I’m giving you my daughter. You better take care of her.” Marcus knew immediately he had spent too much time listening to Aspen’s feminist rants, as he was ready to tell the man he wasn’t giving anything, since Aspen was her own person and not a property. But decided against it, instead choosing to reply to the later part. 

❅ - my muse tells yours that they’re two weeks late and might be pregnant

Marcus tiene que sentarse al recibir las noticias, el suave nido de cobijas y almohadas en el que se sienta no hace más que recordarle esa noche. En la selva importaba muy poco la hora, y el mátematico había dormido junto a Maleah todo el día solo para despertarse de un sueño apasionado y agitado con un deseo imposible de reprimir. Marcus no había intentado reprimirlo, y Maleah no había detenido sus avances. 

¿Pero ahora? ¿Qué iba a hacer?

Marcus no se arrepentía de aquella noche, lo que tenía con Verónica no podía comparárse con Maleah, con Maleah era instintivo, natural. Marcus la quería y de eso estaba seguro. Pero no estaba listo para ser padre, y sobre todo no estaba preparado para ser padre en medio de la selva tropical. 

Un millón de preguntas asaltaron la mente del científico, luchando por salir, pero él las reprimió todas con labios fruncidos. Sin importar cuantas veces le preguntáse “¿estás segura?” eso no iba a cambiar la situación. Sin importar cuantas veces repitiera que sólo había sucedido una vez, Maleah estaba embarazada, y él no podía más que intentar decidir que hacer a partir de ese momento. Su mente acelerada se debatió en un millón de posibilidades, desde la mínima de salir corriendo de la cabaña, hasta preparar las maletas inmediatamente para cambiar el plan y llevar a Maleah a la civilización inmediatamente, sólo para asegurarse de que tuviera el mejor cuidado posible. 

Pero entonces el matemático recordó que la mujer que amaba seguía ahí parada, esperando una reacción por su parte. Entonces recordó que ya no era solamente su decisión, si no de ambos. Porque por primera vez, no estaba solo. Tenía un equipo; él y Maleah eran un equipo.

Hello, lovely brother number one. I figured I should probably pick you something up for Christmas, seeing as we are family, so here you go. I hope you enjoy.

So, I figured this first thing could be a join present, mainly because we discussed locking ourselves in our rooms and consuming a whole chocolate pie, so here's your chance.

So, I thought you could wear this out and look nice and fancy, so here. Enjoy.

So, i saw this bracelet and I really liked it, so I thought you might too. Wear it, and enjoy. 

Merry Christmas, Atticus. 

Marcus Hummel.