ZAGREUS HATES BEING away from Noor. He knows that with his powers, she can handle herself. He knows that there was a reason why he didn't stop her when she was pinning Harrow to the ground.
But this is a god fight, and she is still, at heart, that girl he saw in London for the first time, crying on a park bench.
However, if there was one thing that little girl was, it was stubborn. There was no way she would have let him stay with her if she needed to make sure that Steven and Marc were alive and well. And that Khonshu wasn't going to manipulate them, again.
Yes, he knows, he's one to talk about manipulation. Everything he used to do was for himself, but now, there's nothing he wouldn't do for her. He considers it growth.
However, years of being joined at the hip can only lead to abandonment issues and the very unsettling that he doesn't belong in any place she isn't in. Though, Noor is currently fighting a whole god and her Knight right now. Time to get a bit of perspective.
Finding Marc and Steven might have been tricky if Khonshu wasn't involved. Zagreus can sense the old bird from miles away, luckily enough.
He's standing over a dune, near the exit of Alexander the Great's tomb, waiting for Marc who's making his way towards him.
Well, now is the time for Khonshu to see his absolutely dazzling smirk. He's sure Marc and Steven missed him.
Khonshu doesn't look impressed when he appears next to him. "God of Rebirth."
"Khonshu Fried Chicken."
If he had eyes, he'd be closing them in annoyance. Truly, this similarity between the god and his Knight was slowly getting on his bird nerves.
"I see you've made yourself visible to us," he says, and Zagreus holds his tongue. "The situation may be dire indeed."
"Yeah, it's pretty fucked up," he ironises, deliberately using slang to throw him off. "It's fucked up that my Knight was so worried over you manipulating her soulmates that she'd send me here instead of having someone around to look out for her."
"Now might be the time to use your last trick."
Being a Death deity did come with a variety of hidden schemes. The Curse, the Bloodlust. The Last Breath, the trick Khonshu was referring to, was one of them. In the event of a Knight being overpowered, the gods could sever their bond and use the remnants of power from it to fuel themselves until they're back to their full glory, for a short instant, before Elyisum.
Except, well, no Elysium. They had been over this. Zagreus isn't just about to die today, especially not because of a crocodile.
"Zag?" Marc calls, and Zagreus decides that he'll let the nickname fly. "Why can we see you?"
"Because I want to," he states simply. He doesn't feel like going into depths about how people knowing about him could be potentially very harmful to Noor, he knows that Marc will figure it out eventually.
Though, as of right now, the only reason he doesn't ask is because he figures that Zagreus is just being dramatic. Besides, he has more pressing matters to deal with.
He turns to Khonshu with a small smirk behind the mask of his Moon Knight suit. "Noor turned you down, didn't she?"
Zagreus snorts. "Oh yeah, it was grandio–"
"Ammit has been freed," Khonshu says, loud enough for the god to stop talking. "I was not strong enough to stop her. The little bug is buying us time. Marc Spector, I need your help."
However, Steven fronts before he even gets to finish the sentence. It was the right play, because the second Khonshu mentioned something about Noor being in danger, Marc lost all his ability to think.
"Hold on, Noor is what?"
Zagreus starts nodding aggressively. "Yeah, she has the Armour? Which should save her, but –"
"You let her have the Armour again?" Marc cries out, fronting immediately. "After what it did to her the last time?"
"Well she made a pretty compelling case, what with needing to stay alive to buy you time!" Then, he blinks, realising something that should have been evident. "Woah, you're really good, fronting back and forth. Like Hannah Montana said, it's truly the best of both worlds." He assesses what he just said, blinking. "I think I'm having a breakdown."
Steven fronts again. "Then what are you doing here instead of being all the way over there?"
He huffs. "Well, she wanted to be sure Khonshu wouldn't manipulate you again. Have you seen her when she gets into it? No way to tell her 'no', is there?"
Marc again. "Oh, I swear, when we get to her..."
"Yeah, we know, you'll kiss her silly, can we get back to more pressing matters?"
He could swear that Marc is blushing right now. He's got absolutely nothing hinting to it, but it's like he can feel it.
"Thank you," Khonshu says, and Zagreus feels dirty for helping him out. "As I was saying, Marc Spector, I need your help."
"Ah, just curious about something," Steven chimes in, holding up a finger. "How's this whole new arrangement gonna work then?"
"Steven Grant, I was not speaking to you!"
"Yeah, all right. But we do come as like, a package deal now, so you are gonna have to deal with me. And we did just save your life, so you're welcome for that."
Zagreus arches an eyebrow. "Yeah, actually, my Knight saved him?"
"Right, yes, Noor helped. But I do think that you should answer my question though. How's this deal gonna work?"
Khonshu sighs, deeply annoyed. "You would negotiate now, with so much at stake? With the little bug fighting?"
"Actually, Noor would want this," Zagreus hums. "Carry on."
"Thank you, Ziggy."
"I can allow Zag, but I draw the line at Ziggy.
"Thank you, Ziggy," Steven maintains. "After all, we did learn from the best, you silly old bird."
Khonshu looks away. "I will release you both. You have my word."
This irks Zagreus. He's had his fair share of con artists in all his life, and he knows a play on words when he hears one. This, right here, is exactly why Noor wanted him to come.
However, he doesn't say anything. He feels a sharp pain in his chest, hand hovering over it in confusion, staring at the pyramid of Giza in the distance, barely able to see the tip of it.
Something's wrong with Noor.
NOOR HAS, IN fact, just been knocked out. Ammit brought the whole main room down on her, in an attempt to make the puny Knight shut up for one second. But she didn't go out without a fight – Harrow's face is almost completely tumefied from her hits, and she's not half proud of it, whatever the Bloodlust tells her.
She groans. She's only been out for a minute, tops, but still.
"Noor?"
Zagreus screaming at the top of his lungs doesn't help her growing headache. She opens an eye, and coughs, the dust from the rubble getting in her throat.
"Well, that went well," she says between two fits of coughs. "Did you find them?" she immediately asks, standing up shakily, head ducking to not hurt herself with the rubble.
He cannot believe that she'd ask this after just being knocked out because a whole building came crashing down on her. "Yes, I did, and they're looking better than you right now." Her eyes shine with worry still. "They're coming."
Finally, she sighs in relief, brushing the dust off of her shoulders, the healing factor of the Armour finally kicking in. "Okay. All better. Let's go."
"Let's go? What happened to taking a moment to breathe properly? Cooling down a bit?"
"No time!" she cries out.
She lifts the stones out of her way, godly strength fueling her muscles, before making her way out of the pyramid. Harrow has a head start, but she has rage.
When she comes out of the pyramid, she frowns at the night sky, but figures that Khonshu must have had a little fit, didn't he?
She can see Harrow making his way to the top of the pyramid, and she wipes the blood from her nose, beginning her ascent.
It's trickier than she thought with the Armour on, but she makes it work. Halfway to the top, she hears him chant in coptic, his cane lighting up in bright purple and colouring the night sky.
"Oh, what the fuck."
Following Zagreus' gaze, she looks behind her to see Ammit swallowing down violet souls, from people she judged too early, feeding her until she grows in size, almost as big as the pyramid itself.
In normal circumstances, her anxiety would be paralysing. She never thought she'd say this, ever, but right now, it's galvanising. People are down there, probably having panic attacks, like she does, and she can do something to help.
"Right, well, she's got the biggest," she states, before looking back at Harrow. "But I know how to use it."
"We could do without the dick allegory."
"No, we couldn't."
She starts climbing again, and soon enough, she's at the top of the pyramid.
Harrow has his back turned to her, chanting still. She sheathes her blade. The Bloodlust makes her smirk. Killing him with her bare hands does sound tempting.
"Hey!" she calls out, Harrow stopping and turning to her. She grins at the blood smearing his face. "We're not done."
Harrow is too calm about this. "I thought you were a good person, miss Dhawan," he says. "Your scales changed."
She almost extends her arms, almost bowing. "You made it happen." Knight Mare twirls her blade. "Thanks, by the way."
"I did not make you a killer," he tries. "You made that choice."
It stalls the Bloodlust, long enough for Noor to blink, and shake her head. "I'm not going to kill you. I really should, but I'm not strong enough to deal with the PTSD. I'm not a killer."
"I think some of my men would disagree."
"Well, they can't exactly show up to tell it to my face, can they?" she can't help but say.
Harrow sighs. "If you let me go on, I could save little girls like you. I could get rid of the fathers that never acted as such. Spare them the pain. Mental illnesses."
Knight Mare's eyes flash with pain, and she clenches her jaw. "The pain made me who I am. And I am good with it." She huffs. "Don't you get it? The only thing keeping me going is knowing that I know how to help people like me. Not by murdering their fathers." She spares a look at Zagreus, Noor smiling sadly. "Not by hurting themselves. But by making sure that people like me aren't alone."
Harrow finds this incredibly idiotic, and frankly, a bit too optimistic to his liking. "You are broken," he reminds her.
She nods. "And?"
There's nothing else to add to this. The whole word could sing to her how broken she is, and she wouldn't listen. Anxiety is a weakness, she's not that delusional. But she thinks it's also a strength. She knows how to help people who have panic attacks. She knows how to stop the forever tumbling sound of despair in their brains. It allowed her to calm Steven and Marc down in the Duat, allowing them to breathe thanks to her. She can help people because of it. Why wouldn't it be the only thing that matters to her? She's broken. She knows it.
And?
Harrow doesn't even know what to answer her. She sees it in the way he tilts his head – he's just like her dad. Doesn't like it when people escape his control. He would do anything to recover it.
Including a mistake.
"I see the death of your soulmates has taught you the wrong lesson," he declares.
Knight Mare smiles, tongue running over her teeth. "Boy am I glad you said that."
She throws her fist into his face, blocks the punch he tries to deliver. Harrow is skilled, but Noor is deadly.
She tears at his skin with her nails, leaving four gashes into his arm, making him gasp and almost fall back.
The movement brings her attention to the sky, where a flying form is coming at them, and she smiles. "I think my dead soulmate wants to say hi."
Without giving him the pleasure to answer, she kicks him in the chest, sending him tumbling down the pyramid.
She watches with a prideful smirk as Moon Knight runs all the way up, Harrow barely standing on his fist, before slamming his knee into his head.
Zagreus blinks, whistling. "Me next."
Noor can't help but gasp loudly. "Can you not?"
Seeing as her soulmate is casually flying all the way down the streets of Cairo, she hurries down the pyramid, sending a giant Khonshu a confused look. That is a can of worms that needs opening later.
Zagreus' enhanced stamina and speed is really put to use as she zooms through the streets of Cairo, heart in a frenzy at the thought of finding Marc again, and the dread that Harrow would have the upperhand.
She finds him in a pile of rubble created by their fall, Harrow raising his cane-turned-axe, ready to strike.
Luckily, Noor strikes first.
She slams into him with all her might, sending Harrow flying a few metres down, breaking walls with the force of the collision.
"Noor?"
Noor turns to Marc as he stands up, suddenly hyper aware of her outfit, and the fact that this is the first time they see each other again in the real world, and whatever their last conversation was.
So, Knight Mare, wearing a Godly Armour, blood splattered all over her, crimson red pupils, starts mumbling and blushing.
"Marc! Oh right, yes, you didn't see the Armour – yeah that's Zag's design, I'm not sure about it, do you like–"
Marc slams his lips on hers before she even gets the chance to think about her next sentence.
If Noor thought the bond was powerful, this is nothing compared to their kiss. As the Soulmate Bond snaps into place again, it's a very different fire that lights up her veins, sending sparks throughout her entire body, her lips moving against Marc's.
His hands grab her hips, finger digging into the roughness of her Armour. Noor senses the urgency and opens her mouth, letting him claim her in every way that matters, nails scraping his neck.
She's never been kissed like this. Marc holds her firmly, keeping her in place, tongue searching her mouth like he needs this to breathe.
When they part, softly gasping for air, she keeps him close, her forehead on his. "I take it you like the Armour."
"Are you kidding me?" he says, breathless. "I love the Armour."
She gulps, doing her best to cling to the scraps of self-control she still has. "I seem to recall that we're in the middle of a fight."
Marc gets closer, lips moving against hers when he speaks. "I seem to recall settling on 'a couple'."
Noor blushes. "I said we'd adjust."
"I've adjusted."
He kisses her again, softer this time, hands cradling her face with less hunger, more so to drown in the feeling of fire crackling under his skin. He can feel her smile into the kiss, his heart hammering in his chest.
Nothing else matters around them, not the giant gods fighting, not Harrow, nothing but them, kissing like they need it to live. Something in the back of Noor's head screams at her that danger is still here, but she doesn't find the strength to care.
That is, until Zagreus notices Harrow slowly standing up, and he claps loudly. "Okay kids!" he cries out, forcing them apart.
Even Steven has to front, making Noor blink in surprise as the suit changes with him, before she can feel the reassuring sense of familiarity that comes with him. "Steven."
She hugs him close to her, rubbing his back as he puts his cheek against her temple. "Sorry for stepping in, love, but Marc's baby making urge needed to stop."
She frowns, letting out a small laugh. "Baby making urge?"
Zagreus puts his hands around his mouth to scream, "He was going to have a boner can we focus back on the bad guys?"
Noor shuts her mouth, blushing all the way down her neck, and clearing her throat. "Right, yes. Bad guys. Totally focused."
Layla runs in the street, wearing a suit that reminds Noor of the back of a scarab, looking back and forth between her and her soulmate. "What did I miss?"
Author's Note: NOORC KISS!!!!! freaking hope it was worth the wait because i was kicking my feet blushing and everything
also Greek Tragedy is 30 chapters so we're very much nearing the ending and that makes me very sad................
(the baby making urge is courtesy of venusdeity)