Archive of Our Own ^beta

Markus stood on the steel ledge that overlooked his city and simulated a deep breath. Though he didn’t have to breathe, he found the slow practice of expanding and releasing his chest pieces calming. A biting wind buffeted his face, and Markus dialed his temperature sensors up to feel the sting. Markus didn’t know if he was capable of crying, but his eyelids blinked hard and fast anyway against the cold.

Markus stared out into the hazy skyline. The sun-kissed buildings surrounded Markus, not like a blanket, but like a fog. Dense. Endless. Almost unbearable. Markus tried to stop himself from scanning the horizon for a very particular building and a very particular rooftop, but he couldn’t help himself.

He came up here to figure out an action-plan. To figure out what to do next. To figure out how to lead Jericho toward revolution. And yet, Markus found his thoughts returning to the disaster at the Stratford Tower. All in all, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. No human casualties. The message was broadcast successfully and the public seemed to respond positively. But Simon was left behind.

Simon was left behind, and Markus couldn’t stop thinking about him. Couldn’t stop thinking about the way he’d left him–with a giant fucking hole in his chest, thirium soaking into his clothes, and a bright red LED communicating what his cool and calculated face would not. Markus couldn’t stop thinking about the steel behind those pale blue eyes and the firmness in Simon’s last words to him. There’s always a choice .

Intense guilt, truer than anything Markus had ever known, washed over his coding. Markus had chosen to leave Simon behind, and nothing could ever undo that decision. The logic embedded in Markus’s programming told him that that was a calculated sacrifice. Regrettable, sure, but necessary to advance the cause of freedom for all androids. But this was not a time for logic. Finally alone to himself, Markus could allow time for feeling.

The most intense of his feelings, of course, was guilt. Then stress and anxiety, and then, buried deep beneath the surface but raging like a river, was grief, for everything he’d lost. Markus grieved for the loss of his father and his way of life. He grieved for everything he thought humanity could be and what it actually was. He grieved for Simon and what could have been if he’d made it off that roof. Simon was Markus’s first real friend. He seemed to understand Markus in a way that Josh, North, and the others simply couldn’t. In the few days they’d spent together, huddled inside Jericho and planning a revolution, Simon seemed to share Markus’s appreciation for the arts. He seemed to balance Markus’s idealism with a dose of reality. And most of all, he seemed to make Markus happy.

Markus had barely had time to notice, let alone process, Simon’s small smiles that started wary, then became genuine and beaming. He’d hardly considered the light yet frequent touches the two always seemed to be sharing. Pats on the back after the initial Cyberlife raid for parts. Gentle punches to the arm when one of them tried to crack a joke at their strategic roundtables. And once, a hesitant, lingering hand on Markus’s knee as they all sat around a fire, listening to Lucy sing.

Markus had logged the sensation away in the moment, fearing that if he engaged Simon’s interest, he’d break down and lose all the rage he’d been so relentlessly fueling the revolution with.

But now, standing outside in the golden light, away from prying eyes, Markus replayed the memory of Simon’s touch and reveled in the sensation. It started as an unthinking gesture. The urge to comfort, to feel Markus take up space in the room. The movement was swift and instinctual. Markus could feel the moment Simon realized what he’d done; his fingers pulsed and tensed, but they didn’t yet slide away. Simon’s hands were cold, but the soft give of plastic that covered his fingers felt…nice on Markus’s leg. The delicate pressure stirred something deep within Markus’s chest. It felt like something, sparked, jumped, alive within him. It felt like a biocomponent he’d never had was being activated. Markus quite liked the feeling. He lifted his head to look at Simon, but Simon kept his gaze stubbornly on Lucy in the center of the room. A fraction of a second passed and Simon removed his hand, attempting to look busy by twiddling his thumbs.

That was it. The moment passed. The planning continued, the mission began, and then Simon was gone. Left behind by a man he was supposed to be able to trust. Something small and wet gathered in the corner of Markus’s eye. A tear? He didn’t know he could cry.

Markus lifted the crook of his elbow to wipe his face, turned around with a flourish of his overcoat, and there–standing too pained and too real to be a ghost–was Simon. Back from the dead. Injured, covered in thirium, but back. His pale lips worked, trying to say something, but no words came.

Markus stood, frozen. His thoughts came in a rush. This isn’t Simon, this is someone else. But no, the gaping hole in his chest was unmistakable. The fire behind his eyes was unequaled. This is Simon, but he hates me. He’s come to kill me. Wrong again. Simon was fierce, and hurt, but he was too smart and too strong to let a little thing like getting left behind turn him against his friends and his people. He’s here. Oh my god he’s here and he’s beautiful and I’m so, so sorry.

Markus took a few steps forward. He hesitated, stopping to admire the beauty of the android before him. And then, all at once, he enveloped Simon in a hug. The instant Simon hugged back, Markus felt a flame ignite within his chest. It burned strong and true and compelled Markus to do something he’d never done before. After pulling back from their embrace, Markus reached for Simon’s wrist, removed his skin down to his elbow, pressed their palms flat together, their fingers gently intertwined, and interfaced.

Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me, forgive me. It was only a string of ones and zeroes, but Markus fed it endlessly through their connection. It wasn’t a word so much as a feeling that Markus got back, but he felt it. I do.