Full Mask! Mark x Pregnant! Reader
This blurb was inspired by @michaelmyerspersonalslut and their post that I came across. Thank you Sanex Me for requesting Full Mask/Phantom Mark! Warnings: Angst, mentions of death and violence, mentions of reader struggling with how their body has changed during pregnancy, Baby as a pet name is used, Full Mask! Mark grieving his reader. If I missed anything, I apologize. Word Count: 800 plus
If it hadn’t been for the mask? You would have wholeheartedly believed that he was yours. You were both equally surprised to see each other. For you, it was the shock from seeing one of the violent strangers on the news. For him, it was seeing you alive, well, and very pregnant. His hands were as soft as your Mark’s when he cupped your face. “Thank God.” He whispered more to himself than you. He almost got too close. Even though his suit was damp, you could smell something that made your stomach twist. There were hints of something metallic and sickeningly sweet that mixed with what you assumed was from a distant burning city. It broke the illusion of the man that was treating you so well and reminded you exactly what he was up to. His forehead nearly touched your own, but you managed to jerk your head back. “I don’t know you like that.” You don’t know what caught you off guard more: The fact that he took a step back or how he paced. “You’re right, you’re right! I just-” His hands smoothed over where his mask covered his hair. Mark stopped once he caught wind of how tense you were with him accidentally cornering you in your room. He was buzzing, riding the high of relief and excitement, then expelling it all in a sigh. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you, Baby.” He looked away from you and really took in the room. It isn’t exactly what he’d pictured when you had made mood boards or sent him links to furniture. His father had insisted that he was getting too comfortable despite how happy his mom had been. When Mark had been naive? He assumed Nolan meant that the two of you were young, dumb, and moving too fast. Not that Nolan had seen you as someone who was going to hold Mark back. It left him in an empty apartment that he didn’t have the heart to decorate. Not like how your decor breathed life into the same space. There was something that warmed his heart about how the Seance Dog comic collection was on a shelf next to your things, or how the room that the two of you thought would be a nerd den in his dimension was now a nursery here. Mark approached you slowly, accepting how you scooted up further along the bed. He knelt down at the edge of it. There was an awkward beat where you both looked at the other. His thumb dragged along his neck and hooked into his mask before he pulled it off. Mark’s hair was disheveled from how he'd seemingly combed it back before he’d suited up. He was pale. It contrasted the circles beneath his eyes. It was something more than being run ragged, as though he hadn’t slept well in ages. His five o’clock shadow certainly didn’t help this Mark look more rested. It took you back to how your Mark’s facial hair would scratch your neck or shoulder when he'd hug you close before he’d shave in the morning as you’d both get ready. Mark’s chin rested on the edge of the bed, looking up at you with familiar brown eyes. It was then that you learned how weak you were for your boyfriend. There was a wonder if love travelled between dimensions, or how devastated you would have been if you had truly lost Mark after the Destruction of Chicago. “Are you happy?” His voice is soft.
Despite the walls you’d initially put up, despite knowing that he was a bad person, you reached out to smooth your hands through his hair. He melted under your touch. “I’m happy, Mark.” His hand settled over yours as he breathed in the smell of you and him mixed with your laundry detergent. His favorite sweater that he’d been too scared to wear or wash didn’t smell like you anymore after he’d gotten it from your old closet.
He shuffled closer on his knees. Mark moved to hold your hand. He very nearly kissed your knuckles yet stopped himself. “Baby, you can hate me. You can never forgive me. That’s okay.” Soft brown eyes drank you in. You felt many things over the last few months. You’d felt huge, uncomfortable, sick, needed to look up your symptoms more often than you’d like to admit, and you had despised your stretch marks more than your Mark would ever know. In this moment? The man at the edge of your bed made you feel like an angel. “I wanted to see you again. I wanted to see mom.” He left out that he wanted to whisk the two of you away, to selfishly hoard you instead of playing old voice memos to get out of bed.
“Mark, I-” He’d left you speechless. “You know I can’t forgive you for hurting people.” His somber nod and smile made you feel worse. A part of you wanted him to get angry instead of going through the motions as if he’d rehearsed this. Maybe he had.
Mark straightened himself, ready to head out to fulfill his deal with Angstrom. There was a pep in his step that he hadn’t felt in too long. “Stay here where it’s safe. That’ll be enough for me.” He fidgets with his mask for a moment. “I love you.”
