The Gold Man Problem

[sideways]

Title: The Gold Man Problem
AO3: Link
Rating: PG
Series: Moon Knight (MCU) (Steven Grant, Marc Spector, Bertrand Crawley)
Wordcount: 1,845
Summary: Steven realises he and Marc have a mutual friend. He's not best pleased about it.
Tags: No Archive Warnings Apply, Post-Canon
Remarks: If I was a hardcore Moon Knight comics fan I'd probably be grumbly about the sidelining of pretty much the entire canon cast, but since I'm not I just get to use my vague knowledge as fanfic fuel instead!

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"Unbelievable," Steven said.

 

The man seated on the Trafalgar fountain received this pronouncement with the same good grace with which he had already received Steven pointing and making a noise better suited to a balloon animal meeting a grisly end. Apparently, beneath a head-to-toe coat of gold paint and a pose of exquisite stillness, there had been hidden long white hair, a grubby patchwork vest, and an amiable expression held in place by titanium pegs. He looked rather like the lead singer in a folk band.

 

Mr Gold, Steven had always called him.

 

Never out loud, of course, because he had the vague sense that while having a personal nickname for a bloke who never said a word to you was just this side of socially acceptable, actually using the name you'd made up for another human being like a stray pigeon in the street was the sort of behaviour people might think of as just a little bit off. It was why society had invented the word 'mate', after all.

 

The name had just felt right. Fit him tidily into the bigger picture. There was Donna and J.B at work, there was Mum and Gus at home, and there was Broom Man and Mr Gold hanging about as the local colour, no pun intended. As rounded and normal a social network as the average working class Londoner could hope for.

 

Only he wasn't Mr Gold, it turned out, because he'd had a real name all along - and Steven had expected that, he wasn't mad, or at least no madder than he'd ever been. He just hadn't expected the part where Marc knew Mr Gold's real name, and Mr Gold also knew Marc's real name - the one on the passport and the birth certificate and all the places Steven wasn't - because they knew each other and he was the person Marc had texted to meet him here at this hour to exchange information and his name was Bertrand Crawley and he was Marc's friend.

 

More of a business associate, Marc said.

 

Steven very seriously considered poking himself in the eye.

 

"Un-bloody-believable!" he said again instead. It came out louder than he meant, if still not quite as loud as he was feeling. A couple of heads started to turn.

 

Oh, here we go, Marc said twattishly, like a twat. Steven was certain a pair of exasperated eyes would be waiting for him in the wavering surface of the fountain or the lockscreen on his mobile if he cared to go looking for them. Which he didn't. No, go ahead, make a scene. Not like we'll ever want to come back here.

 

"You should be banned from every place," Steven hissed.

 

"Here, now," Mr Gold - Crawley - said mildly. "No call for that. A man has to make a living."

 

"No - sorry, sorry, not you." He scrubbed a hand against his forehead in agitation. A sort of horrible home cinema was starting to play in there, a dozen memories unspooling themselves in high definition, only it was more like those videos J.B had shoved into his face some mornings where the soundtrack had been replaced by someone playing the recorder with their nose. "I just - I don't believe this. Why am I even apologising? You knew." Crawley raised an enquiring eyebrow, and Steven flung his arms up. "Marc! You know Marc!"

 

Crawley seemed to consider this for a moment; it was hard to tell exactly what was going through his head, but then Steven supposed that when you did the facial equivalent of weight-lifting every evening you didn't really make any expressions you didn't want to. At last he bowed his head, and it was an oddly graceful gesture for someone wearing mismatched shoes. "That I do," Crawley admitted. "It's been a few years now, I'd say."

 

"A few..." Clearing his throat didn't really make it any less squeaky. "A few years?"

 

"Since - what was it, Marc? 2018 and a charming summer's day?"

 

Possibly this was what an aneurysm felt like. He almost hoped so. "It's been two bloody months!" He dragged a hand down his face, a slow squelching mortification rising in him like stepping on wet grass in socks. "Oh, my god. You must think I'm an absolute idiot. Of course you do. You knew from the start - you knew exactly what was wrong with me!"

 

"Yes," the man said thoughtfully. "Nothing whatsoever."

 

"Well it didn't feel like nothing, did it!"

 

Steven, Marc said tersely. Stop shouting.

 

He didn't want to stop shouting. He wanted to shout very loudly, and also kick several things over, and maybe punch something as well. Preferably something with a frowny forehead and extremely breakable nose.

 

Crawley clucked his tongue, still looking thoughtful, and then steepled his fingers over his knees. "We seem to be rather wrong-footed," he began diplomatically. "Perhaps we should reconvene tomorrow…"

 

No. Marc was a prickly, insistent pressure in his head now, real irritation scraping at him, trying to work its way through the rest of him. Pushing to be in front. Steven. Let me through.

 

"No," Steven echoed. "No - no, you know what, I don't think so. Mm-mm." He shook his head violently to clear the buzzing, pacing a short, looping circle. "You just - you shut up. Not you," he said to Crawley. "Anything you want to say to Marc you can say to me, yeah? I'll pass on a message, how's that?"

 

The buzzing formed a few very precise, very rude, and very anatomically improbable words.

 

Crawley studied him for a moment, a sharpness about him that hadn't been there a second before. Suddenly Steven could absolutely believe this was one of Marc's contacts, the first person he went to when he wanted the lowdown on the street jazz or however they put it in not-actually-a-spy lingo. Next to that, Mr Gold was nothing more than a static image of a stranger. A magazine cutout pinned to the wall, as childish and impersonal as a voicemails sent to a phone number no one would ever answer.

 

"Very well," Crawley said slowly. "Word is, your man's got himself quite the cosy set-up just outside Falkirk. I believe young Frenchie can corroborate."

 

Steven could feel the information land somewhere he wasn't privy to, feel Marc take it into himself where it had real weight and depth and meaning. All it felt like to Steven was stomach cramps.

 

"Righto," he said with a curious sort of numbness. "Falkirk, naturally. Lovely weather there this time of the year, yeah. And Frenchie, is it? Guessing that's another one of you lot? Proper little multinational group you've got going, very nice. God," he said wonderingly. "Just like a band. Frenchie and the Brits."

 

"Think I saw that one," Crawley said approvingly. "Back in the 70s. Excellent bass line."

 

With weary impatience, Marc said, Look, you want to go through my whole damn contact list and get the details? We'll do that. But you're way out of line right now, Steven. Let me talk to-

 

"Who?" Steven demanded. "Best mate Bertie Crawley?"

 

Goddamnit, Marc snapped. I didn't ask you to latch onto him - the whole of London around you, how the hell did you even meet?

 

Suddenly Steven wasn't sure how it had happened either. He'd just been walking around one night, applying fresh air and bustle as a balm to the end of a pretty lousy day, and between the jugglers and the shouty card tricks the gold man on the bench had hardly been the flashiest busker on display. There'd been - something, though, about the crooked smile, the warm eyes behind the paint and the monocle. Something that made it an unthinking choice to sit down next to him, and even though he hadn't planned on striking up a conversation, once he had, it was just the easiest thing in the world.

 

To his horror he felt his eyes sting: a final indignity. Of course Crawley had looked like he was welcoming a friend. Crawley had probably seen Marc's face and twinkled a hello at him in underground not-a-spy code, and only realised his mistake when Steven had opened his enormous, ridiculous mouth to babble at him about fish physiotherapy.

 

"Well, go on," he said. "Let's get it all out there. I suppose J.B was best man at your wedding?"

 

At some point the prickly edges of Marc's annoyance had stopped prickling quite so much. Steven wasn't sure exactly when. He said, quieter, I don't know who that is, Steven.

 

"Great," Steven said savagely. "Fantastic. There's our wall then, is it? I get a dead fish and a bunch of- of absolute jerk-offs, if we're honest, was about this close to smothering someone with a hippo, getting fired would have been bloody worth it then - and you get Layla and France and the only person who ever tolerated me and he only tolerated me because I'm you!"

 

"Marc never brought me pralines, my dear boy," Crawley said.

 

Steven jumped; swung around, lips pressed determinedly together in a flat line. The mild expression hadn't changed, but Crawley had leaned forward, a thoughtful hand propped under his chin.

 

"I apologise," Crawley said after a moment. "Though clearly a source of upset, your situation had seemed a personal matter, and one to which my intervention could only contribute further difficulty. Perhaps that was an unjust decision." He tilted his head, that shrewd look back his eye. "But things are rather different for you now, aren't they?"

 

"Yeah," Steven muttered, tugging at his sleeves. "Yeah, you could say that."

 

The man nodded again.

 

"Well," Crawley said, "if you can forgive an old man his good intentions, I believe I would like them to be different between us as well." He leaned back again and, with brisk invitation, patted the sandstone space next to him.

 

Steven hesitated. Marc was still stormy in his head - had come here for a reason, couldn't hide the fact he itching to get on with it - but as if he sensed the direction of Steven's thoughts there was abruptly the nudge he was becoming familiar with, like a hand between the shoulderblades, gentle and pushy. More than a little grudging this time, but undeniably still there.

 

Steven gingerly settled himself down on the fountain's edge and, when a knobbly hand was elegantly extended, shook it.

 

"Steven Grant," Crawley said warmly. "It is the finest of pleasures to have this opportunity to continue our acquaintance."

 

"Yeah," Steven said awkwardly. Somehow this had felt less strange when it was an immobile golden statue sitting next to him. Possibly because Steven hadn't just bellowed at him in public. "Alright then?"

 

"Very much so, thank you for asking." He crooked one knee over the other and cocked his head, eyes gleaming. "Now, before we get down to business, you must oblige me - things were somewhat fraught last time we spoke, and I've been wondering ever since. Have you truly stopped working for that dreadful Donna woman? Because it is far past time, dear boy."