#looooorrrreeeeee

“I didn’t hurt them, right?” Jackie asked, rubbing the back of his neck. 

“The only thing you bruised was Dark’s ego.” Wilford chuckled.

“What a shame,” Marvin said. 

“You and Dark will get along eventually. Braid hair and talk about cute boys as you had put it.” Wilford twirled his mustache with a finger.

“You weren’t there when I said that. Did Illinois tell you?” 

“Wasn’t I?” Wilford poked his cheek with a hum, lost in thought for a second before just shrugging. “So, my idea-”

“Wait, Did Illinois-”

“-I’m thinking of having Jackie take a nap so he won’t get scared,” Wilford spoke over Marvin as if he hadn’t in the first place. Marvin decided to bite his tongue and save that question for later. 

“Take a nap? You mean knock me out?” Jackie’s face showed that he wasn’t the most fond of that idea. “I mean, if you think it’ll make sure no one’s hurt. We’ve had some really close calls before. Like when I nearly kicked Google’s face but his glasses fell off and they got stepped on or the time Anti tried to get my shoulders and I headbutted his-” 

“I have an idea as well.” Marvin blurted out. Jackie’s rambling getting the thought to come to mind. “It doesn’t involve cotton candy anesthesia, but if it works, Chase is probably going to kick his own ass for not thinking of it himself.” 

“If it doesn’t work, I still vote on letting him nap,” Wilford said. 

“Calling it a nap doesn’t make it less scary,” Jackie muttered. The three of them stopped and turned when the door opened. Google stepped out, holding his phone to his ear and pausing at the sight of the others.

“Who ya calling there, Google?” Wilford nearly sang his question. 

“No one.” Google quickly answered. 

“Hey, Googs!” Bing’s distinctive tone came from the phone. 

“Calling Bing?” Wilford continued his singing voice.

“I’m catching him up,” Google stated before walking off, whispering into the phone so he couldn’t be heard. 

“How many cans of worms are there with this group?” Marvin asked. 

“I don’t have enough fingers to count,” Jackie said. “But that one is actually new to me.” 

“I can fill you in later,” Wilford said with a wink. 

“Yes, later, because I’m about to tear my own skin off with this dried mud on me.” Marvin walked past Wilford and into the room, hearing footsteps behind him and knowing that it was Jackie following him. 

“How are you still moving around caked in that shit?” Phantom asked. 

“Pure spite at this point,” Marvin answered. “Now, do we still need blood from me and Jackie?” 

“We have several running theories but in order to confirm or disprove them, we’d need a closer look at…” Mad’s sentence trailed off when he just got looked at. “Yes. We do.”

Marvin wasn’t staring at Mad because he was talking too much, he was looking because he noticed something was different about him. He could have sworn Mad’s eyes were a light brown but they were a dark purple and as he changed his sentence, his eye color changed as well, turning to a light orange. 

“Your eyes changed,” Marvin said. 

“Oh, yeah, they do that. I’ve been wearing brown contacts around you. Everyone else panicked when they saw them the first time and I didn’t want you to do the same. We came over here so fast that I didn’t have time to put them in.” Mad explained, the orange in his eyes getting brighter the more he spoke. 

“No need to hide them from me, I think they’re pretty cool,” Marvin said with a kind smile, seeing how the orange started having a redder hue to them as a tint of pink appeared on Mad’s cheeks. 

“We should focus on how to fix your and Jackie’s eyes.” Mad was clearly trying to turn the topic away from himself. 

“I have a plan. Henrik, do your usual thing to get what you need from Jackie.” Marvin looked over to where Jackie was talking with Illinois and Yancy. 

“I’m sorry for freaking out like that,” Jackie said. 

“Yous don’t gotta apologize.” Yancy waved a hand. 

“Everyone, well almost everyone, has their fears,” Illinois said. 

“Quit actin’ like you ain’t scared of something.” Yancy lightly slapped Illinois’ arm with the back of his hand. 

“It’s not an act.” Illinois grinned. 

“We’ll scare you one day.” Jackie chuckled. 

“Ready to try my idea?” Marvin asked, joining the group. 

“Oh, yeah, sure. Do I need to like do anything special?” Jackie already looked a bit worried. 

“Just sit on the end of the chair, facing that wall.” Marvin gestured to the spot he was talking about. 

“Okay?” Jackie followed the direction, watching as Marvin ushered the others to move, getting half of them out of the room and the other half to stay at the edge of the room. Dark looked like he wanted to protest but a quick whispered comment from Wilford got him to just roll his eyes and step aside as instructed. 

“I got this part.” Marvin took the disinfecting wipe from Henrik and started cleaning off the crook of Jackie’s arm. “So you know how you’ve been getting me to watch those superhero movies?” He asked Jackie.

“Yeah, we’re gonna watch Into The Spiderverse next.” Jackie sounded confused as he watched Marvin clean him off, toss the wipe aside, and then stand directly in front of him. 

“There’s a question I’ve seen online and I need your opinion. Tobey, Andrew, Tom. Who’s the best Spider-Man?” Marvin hoped the question would do what he assumed it would. 

“Oh! I’ve seen that talk before!” Jackie perked right up. “Like how sometimes there’s being a really good Spider-Man and being a really good Peter Parker and trying to find a way to do the other way since, like, yeah Peter and Spider-Man are the same person but there’s always the-” He went right into an excited ramble like Marvin had planned. Marvin shot a look at Henrik who thankfully caught on and got to work getting a blood sample while Jackie was distracted. Chase slapped his palm to his forehead, also proving Marvin right that he knew he should have thought of this sooner. 

“I think Tom does a younger Spider-Man really well and-”

“This is ridiculous,” Dark muttered as he left the room. “All it took was that.” His mutters continued until he was out of hearing range. 

“I think it’s like super cool how he actually has the webbing coming out of him while the others make their own webbing.” Jackie’s spiel continued without missing a beat, Henrik already halfway done with the blood draw at this point. 

“I could probably make that stuff,” Mad said. 

“You could!?” Jackie turned to look at Mad and Marvin quickly caught his head, both hands on his face and he guided him to look forward again. He was not about to risk him seeing the needle and panicking. Jackie had to take a second to recover from the gesture as Marvin grabbed Mad’s arm and pulled him over to stand beside him. 

“How would you make the webbing?” Marvin prompted. Mad perked up just like Jackie had done.

“There’s a lot of different methods we could use. We’d have to account for some variables if Jackie wishes to swing on the webbing.”

“I totally want to swing!” Jackie bounced a bit on his rear while Mad bounced on his feet. 

“I’d need your weight to make sure the webbing is at least strong enough to hold that and-” Mad rambled on with Jackie adding his ideas and thoughts. Marvin sighed in relief and sat himself in one of the chairs in the room. Anti chuckled as he moved to stand next to him.

“Looks like you’ve used his rambling to your advantage,” Anti said. 

“He’s a lot happier talking about his movie stuff.” Marvin had a smile while watching the two excited men planning a Spider-Man-themed experiment. 

“You like seeing him happy.”

“Of course.” 

“Isn’t that cute?”

“I will shave your head.” 

“All done,” Henrik said, cleaning off the spot and seeing that the small wound already healed by the time it was clean. 

“All done?” Jackie echoed, seeing Henrik holding a vial of blood. “All done?” He said again, looking at his arm and then at Marvin. 

“All done,” Marvin confirmed, giving Jackie a thumbs-up. 

“Well, I’ll be damned.” Illinois chuckled. “All it took was a new head to figure this out.”

“Nothing looks different at a surface level.” Henrik committed, beginning his observations. “We’ll need a sample from Marvin next.” 

“Could you get that one hair mask you mentioned?” Marvin asked Jackie, seeing him tense up. 

“Yep!” Jackie didn’t miss a beat and took off. 

“I’ll go bring him some juice.” JJ chuckled, already in the fridge and leaving the room, flashing a quick smile to Wilford as he passed.

“Let me help you.” Wilford offered and followed him. 

x~x~x

Marvin used Henrik’s bathroom to wash up while Henrik and Mad studied his and Jackie’s blood. He had to keep the door open and the others kept an ear out just in case there was a problem, thankfully, the shower had gone smoothly. 

Marvin didn’t feel any different. Yes, his eyes were still red but nothing felt wrong or off or anything that would raise alarms for him. During the peace of the shower, he did focus on his internal being, and while he felt his own magic, some other magic was in there as well. Maybe that was causing the redness in their eyes. 

Right now Marvin and Jackie sat together on the examination chair once more. Jackie needed to do something with his hands or, to quote him, ‘he’d die of boredom’, so he helped Marvin with applying the hair mask. Using a comb to make sure the product got to the roots of his hair. Marvin just went with it since it always felt nice to have someone playing with his hair but also knowing Jackie really needed something soothing to do after all he’s been through today. Physically and mentally. 

The other Ipliers were sent home. Dark stayed behind to relay any vital information once everything was done. The crowd was no longer needed since there weren’t any immediate signs of danger. Anti got bored and left and JJ excused himself to finish a task he had been working on before Marvin and Jackie returned. 

So it was Jackie, Marvin, Henrik, Chase, Mare, Phantom, Mad, and Dark left in the room. Still plenty of people but at least the crowd shrank somewhat. Marvin was just ready for all this to be done and over with. He was running out of time to get some proper reading done before bed. 

“Now can we confirm it was what I said it was since the beginning?” Phantom asked with a huff. 

“We have tested everything, so yes,” Henrik said. 

“What’s up with us?” Jackie asked, putting the comb down.

“It’s a curse,” Phantom stated.

“A-mother fucker.” Marvin grunted and rubbed his face. “Of course, it’s a curse.”

“Our eyes are cursed?” Jackie scrubbed his eyes with closed fists. 

“In a way.” Mare said. “It’s likely a warning of what the new Ego could do. The magic seems similar to what me and Phantom use. Chaos-based with a focus on illusion. We can dispel the curse right now or it’ll fade naturally within a day or two.” 

“I should have known it was just a visual curse.” Marvin was annoyed at himself for not catching it sooner. He could probably break the curse on his own but didn’t want to risk misreading it and causing permanent damage. “This is beyond anticlimatic.” 

“I’d rather it be something boring than a big problem,” Chase said. 

“I wouldn’t say boring,” Mad said. “Like Mare had said, the eyes were simply a warning. A sign that he is capable of altering our bodies. We don’t know the extent that he is capable of.” 

“Sorry, but-um-can we fix the eyes while we talk about this?” Jackie asked. 

“Dibs on the himbo,” Phantom said before going to Jackie while Mare rolled his eyes and went to Marvin. 

“It’ll take no more than ten seconds,” Mare said, holding his hands up and silently asking permission to use his magic on Marvin. Marvin just nodded his understanding and closed his eyes when Mare’s hands held his head, thumbs on his temples, and the rest of his fingers on the sides of his neck. 

Dark said something but Marvin couldn’t hear him, focusing on the magic surging through his head. Chaos magic felt like its name. Erratic, loud, fuzzy but there was a strange sense of control to it. A control that had to be formed or the magic would break anything and everything it could reach. The magic danced around before finding the string that connected to the curse and it snapped it. Marvin blinked hard a few times when Mare lowered his hands. 

“All clear,” Mare stated. 

“I keep forgetting how blue your eyes are.” Phantom chuckled. “Marvin’s got some blue ones too but his are more like sapphire while yours are ocean.” 

“Thanks?” Jackie tilted his head.

“That’s interesting,” Mad said softly to himself, his gaze on Marvin and a hint of green showing in his eyes. Marvin was going to ask what Mad meant but was cut off by Dark.

“Now, since that is all done.” Dark picked up his blazer and draped it over his arm. “Myself and the other Ipliers will handle our newest member.” 

“But Host said it’s supposed to be Jackie and Marvin.” Chase protested.

“I will need to speak with him about that. We do not crossover like this unless we are creating a new branch. Something is wrong and I will find the solution to it.” Dark turned his neck and cracked it. “Until then. Marvin and Jackie are not to make contact with this new Iplier.”