Chapter 9: Hospital Room
The infirmary lights were a muted, perpetual twilight. Daniel floated in a haze of analgesics and fever dreams. He remembered flashes: the gun’s roar, the cold floor, the impossible face in the sky. The crushing tenderness of giant hands. Then, nothing but the beep of the heart monitor and the dull, deep ache in his side.
He became aware of a presence before he opened his eyes. A solidity in the room, a warmth that pushed back the clinical chill. He turned his head on the stiff pillow.
Marcus sat in a chair far too small for him, pulled up close to the bed. He was staring at his own hands, clasped tight between his knees as if in prayer. He hadn’t shaved. Shadows pooled in the hollows of his eyes, and the lines on his face seemed carved deeper, as if by a knife.
“You look worse than I feel,” Daniel rasped, his throat dry.
Marcus’s head snapped up. The intensity in his gaze was almost physical. He leaned forward, the chair groaning in protest. “They said the bullet missed anything vital. Clean through. They’ve got you on antibiotics, pain management.” He recited it like a report, his voice gravelly.
“Lucky,” Daniel whispered.
“Luck had nothing to do with it,” Marcus said, the words low and vehement. “If I’d been a second slower…”
“You weren’t.” Daniel shifted, wincing. “You were… there.”
They sat in silence. The monitor kept its rhythmic beat. Daniel remembered the taste of blood, the cold barrel. Then the roof tearing away. “I saw what you did. To them.”
Marcus didn’t flinch. “Yes.”
“You ate one of them.”
“I did.”
Daniel searched the man’s face for the monster, for the towering, merciless Titan. All he saw was Garrett—exhausted, haunted, and staring at him with a devotion so raw it was terrifying. “Thank you,” Daniel said quietly.
A shudder ran through Marcus’s broad frame. He reached out, his hand hovering over Daniel’s on the blanket before carefully enclosing it. His touch was devastatingly gentle. “Danny. Look at me. I would do that any time. I would burn cities to the ground. I would peel the skin from the world. I will do anything to make sure no one, nothing, ever hurts you again. Do you understand me?”
The oath hung in the sterile air, a promise of apocalyptic violence spoken in a near-whisper. Daniel believed him utterly. It should have horrified him. Instead, a treacherous, warm relief flooded his veins, stronger than any morphine. He was safe. In the most dangerous possible way, he was safe.
The door hissed open.
Nadia stood in the doorway, her silhouette backlit by the harsh corridor lights. Her eyes, a sharp violet, scanned the scene: Marcus’s large form hunched at the bedside, his hand enveloping Daniel’s. Her painted lips, usually curved in a knowing smirk, flattened into a thin line. Jealousy, hot and acid-green, coiled in her gut.
“Well, isn’t this a touching tableau,” she said, her voice a melody that felt deliberately off-key. She sauntered in, the door shutting behind her. The room felt smaller, charged. “The hero and his damsel. How’s the patient?”
Daniel gave a weak nod. “Recovering. Thanks.”
“Mm.” Her attention stayed locked on Marcus. She stopped beside his chair, her hip nearly brushing his shoulder. She leaned down, the neckline of her top gaping to offer a deliberate view. “You look tense, big guy. You’ve been in here for hours. You need a break. Let’s go for a walk. I know how to work out that… tension.”
Her meaning was a physical thing in the room. Marcus didn’t look up at her. His focus remained on Daniel’s hand beneath his own. “I’m good here, Nadia.”
“Come on,” she purred, trailing a fingernail down his arm. “Remember the storage closet after the agility drills? You weren’t saying no then. You were buried so deep in my cunt you couldn’t remember your own name. I can get you there again. Let’s go.”
The memory was a raw, unbidden flash. Her back against cold metal shelving, her legs hooked over his hips. The frantic, punishing rhythm of it, her cries echoing off the concrete walls. The sweat, the filthy, perfect grind, her teeth sinking into his shoulder to muffle her scream as she came. It had been animal, a release of pure physical need.
Marcus finally turned his head. His gaze was not angry, but weary and utterly final. “That’s all it was, Nadia. We were both horny, and we fucked. I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression.”
The air left the room. Nadia straightened up, the seductive posture vanishing. Her face tightened, all pretense stripped away by the raw honesty. “So that’s it? I’m just a convenient hole for you? A fucking hookup?”
“You wanted the same thing at the time,” he said, his voice low. “It was good. But outside of that… we aren’t great matches for each other.”
She stared at him, her chest rising and falling quickly. The anger was there, bright and sparking, but under it was a sharp slice of humiliation. She’d seen him with Daniel, the way he looked at him—like he was the only anchor in a storm. She’d never gotten that look.
“Fine,” she spat. “Fucking fine.” She turned her glare on Daniel, who had been watching, silent and pale against his pillows. “And you. Just lying there all wounded and precious. If I were you,” she said, each word a dagger, “I wouldn’t be wasting this quality time talking. I’d be under those sheets sucking his dick raw right now as a thank you for saving my pathetic life.”
She spun on her heel, her hair whipping behind her. The door hissed open and then slammed shut with a force that rattled the instruments on the nearby tray.
Silence rushed back in, thicker than before. Daniel stared at the ceiling. Then a sound escaped him, a wet, pained chuckle that tugged at his stitches.
“Oh, god,” he winced, a hand going to his side. “That was… incredibly awkward.”
Marcus let out a long, slow breath, some of the rigid tension leaving his shoulders. A faint, reluctant smile touched his mouth. “She’s direct.”
“She’s something,” Daniel agreed, still laughing softly, the absurdity cutting through the heavy atmosphere Nadia had brought in. His eyes, bright with amused tears, found Marcus’s again. The laughter faded, but the warmth remained. “Storage closet, huh?”
Marcus looked down, a faint flush creeping up his neck. “It was a moment of poor judgement.”
“Sounded… vigorous.”
Their eyes held. The beeping of the monitor seemed to slow, to deepen. The space between them was no longer filled with Nadia’s anger or the ghost of past violence, but with this new, fragile understanding. Daniel’s thumb moved weakly, stroking the side of Marcus’s hand where it still held his.
“You don’t have to stay,” Daniel whispered.
“Yes,” Marcus said, the word absolute. “I do.”