Felicity's Beast World Apocalypse

"I know that." He didn’t sound like he knew that. He sounded like a man rebuilding a wall stone by stone in real time. But his fingers curled around hers anyway, tight, and his eyes—still too bright—dropped to the baby between them like he needed the reminder of what all this was actually for.

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Downstairs a few hours later, the front room had the distinct look of a place recently and rigorously conquered.

"Again!" Luna shouted, already scrambling upright inside the sloshing dome, ears plastered flat and soaked. "Tommy, again, again!"

"Okay, but this is the LAST one," Tommy shouted, even though his face was splitting into a grin that said he didn’t really mean it.

"Because if your dad comes down here and there’s water on the- actually, you know what, no, one more, hold on, HOLD ON" He tightened his huge hands, and the bubble got bigger and shook. Luna’s giggles turned into a happy scream as it floated an inch off the carpet.

Marx sat very still in the armchair by the window, one leg crossed over the other, trying to look like none of it bothered him. Looking very Dark and serious. Like a panther hiding in the shadows while everyone else played and splashed.

But Frost had other ideas.

The boy sneaked up quietly; he moved with the calm patience of someone much older and tugged on Marx’s tail. Marx only noticed when he almost fell sideways out of the chair.

"Hey," Marx said, catching himself on the armrest. He looked over his shoulder, hoping to seem unbothered instead of betrayed. "Personal space, little man."

Frost didn’t say a word. He just studied the tail in his hands, tugged again, and watched Marx’s face like he was taking notes.

"It’s not a rope," Marx said.

Another tug.

"I’m serious. Cool guys don’t let people pull their tails. It ruins the whole." He waved at himself, at his black clothes, at his smirk, at the "dangerous" look he’d been practising since he was old enough to make faces. "Aesthetic."

Frost looked at him with those pale eyes, totally unimpressed. Then, without a word, he sat cross-legged on the floor right beside the chair, still holding the tail like it was the most important thing in the universe, and waited.

Across the room, Tommy fell backward with a splash as the bubble finally popped, soaking him from collar to boots. Luna shrieked with laughter so loud it rattled the window. He sat up sputtering, arms thrown wide. "Did you SEE that? Luna, hug me! Best one yet!"

"You’re all wet!" Luna squealed.

Frost tugged again, but this time more gently, almost thoughtfully. Marx looked down and realised the boy wasn’t paying attention to the bubbles anymore. He was watching Marx studying him, measuring him, like a scientist running a slow experiment and refusing to look away.

"You’re a weird kid," Marx muttered, but kindly. He used to say it with an edge, but lately he didn’t care so much about looking tough.

Frost thought about that, his blue eyes narrowing just a bit, then he blinked once, slow and deliberate. Then he reached up and patted Marx’s knee twice. It wasn’t exactly a hug, but it was the closest thing to approval Marx had gotten from the boy all evening.

Marx and Frost sat there in relative peace while Tommy and Luna kept throwing bubbles at each other. Every time the room shook with a new pop, both of them tensed, ready for water to fly their way, but their corner stayed perfectly dry. Marx felt sure Frost could have kept it that way even if the whole house filled with water.

The next bubble was smaller Luna had learned how to brace herself but it still drenched Tommy from head to toe. He fell over, yelped, and landed in a little puddle. Luna dove on him like a tiny white tornado, ready to win.

Marx glanced down at Frost, who seemed to be figuring out how strong a panther’s tail is compared to his own grip. The boy squeezed the tail again, just a bit tighter.

Marx thought about jerking it back making a show, snarling, trying to scare Frost into acting like a normal kid, but he didn’t. This boy was different. Frost had an old, serious way about him, like someone had stuck a grown-up mind into a child’s body. Marx knew that kind of broken feeling. He’d worn it too, once.

So Marx let it be. Let the kid keep his tail like some kind of prize, let his knee sit there getting patted like a good dog, whatever.

If Frost wanted to sit there all night measuring him, fine. It wasn’t like Marx had anywhere better to be. That was a lie, obviously. There was somewhere better to be, two floors up, behind a door with six very large, very possessive men standing guard, but Marx wasn’t stupid enough to go looking for that kind of trouble.

Nobody scared anything that belonged to Felicity. Nobody so much as breathed wrong near her these days without one of her husbands materialising out of nowhere, silent and murderous.

So Marx stayed right where he was, tail pinned, kid attached, water flying six feet away, and told himself this was enough. This counted. Watching her cubs, keeping them dry and laughing and safe, was the closest he got to her most days, and if it had to be secondhand, fine. He’d take secondhand.

He hadn’t actually seen her in what, four days now? Five? Long enough that he’d started noticing the gap the way you notice a missing tooth, tongue circling the space where something used to be. Nobody saw much of her lately. She was always upstairs, always wrapped around her new cub, always surrounded by men who looked at anyone approaching like they were calculating exactly how many ways they could kill them before breakfast. He did. New babies, new fear, new everything.

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