❛ mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the realest of us all? ❜
in which little aya spector doesn't
recognize herself in the mirror
( COPYRIGHT! - aka - DO NOT STEAL! )
illisius Ⓒ 2022
& , moon knight
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ACT ONE, chapter iv : every time i stand to leave my cage in my broken body i stay
☾
EVERYTHING HURT. LITERALLY EVERYTHING.
Aya was no longer feeling super. In fact, she was feeling pretty terrible.
Her knee, her hips, her head, the list went on.
Before they left Mogart's, they had very conveniently stumbled upon and commandeered (stolen) a jeep. Now, a very sore and very tired Aya sat squished in the front seat between her mother and father. Everything had been strangely tense since they left, and Aya was afraid to break the silence. Layla hadn't said a word, eyes trained on the dark road as she drove them out of the city. Marc was equally quiet, stretching Aya's bad leg across his lap, one hand massaging at the familiar swelling in her knee as he had for her entire childhood.
When she was three and the tumor started in her knee, sometimes the pain was so bad that she could barely walk. Marc used to carry Aya around everywhere; perched on his shoulders, hanging off his back, wrapped around his hip. With surgery, she had gotten better and grew more confident in her movements, but she still had a slight unevenness to her gait — most people would never notice, and Aya worked hard to smoothen it out.
But Marc noticed.
He noticed almost everything when it came to his girl.
"Feeling better?"
Aya curtly nodded, hand slightly hiding her eyes so he couldn't see they were full of pained tears.
Marc saw it, anyway. He was never very good with tears — or any emotions at all, really, as much as he wanted to be. So, he said nothing. He simply sighed and kissed the side of her curly head. Moving on for her sake, he glanced down at his jacket resting in her lap and found it riddled with bullet holes.
"Ay. I really liked that jacket." Tsking, Marc tossed it into the cluttered back, "Oh, well."
Layla was too lost in thought to reply.
Aya appreciated the change in subject, blinked away her tears, and smirked lopsidedly at her father, "Exactly how many clothes of yours have been totally ruined 'cause you got shot, Baba?"
"I stopped counting."
"You stopped counting or you lost track?"
"Same difference."
Aya tsked sympathetically, "Bit sad, innit?"
"Are..." Marc paused and made a face, "Are you mimicking Steven?"
"Little bit."
"Just when I thought things couldn't get any weirder."
