Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"Do you think we're together in every universe?"

"What?"

The incredulous voice spoke from barely an inch away in the pitch-black room.

Marvin asks again.

"Do you think we're together in every universe?"

Marvin expected to hear laughter. A scoff. Feel the head on his shoulder sigh.

What he could feel, was complete stillness, as if said head had completely tensed up, frozen.

Then, all it once, he felt what he had expected. The tenseness was gone, and an audible chuckle sounded. It almost seemed forced, too quick after the last to be a purely natural reaction.

Marvin shook that thought away. What was he talking about?

This was Whizzer.

Of course the reaction was genuine.

Whizzer couldn't pretend even if his life depended on it.

He couldn't even pretend to love Marvin.

"Another universe? Marvin, really, what the Hell does that even mean—" "Nothing."

Marvin spoke without even thinking, just wanting to stop the feeling of embarrassment that was creeping it's way up his body.

"I-I mean—" Marvin amended, because, for some strange, strange reason, he actually did want to discuss this...

With Whizzer.

"It's just, with how complex time and space are, there's gotta be more universes, right?" 

The room was silent for barely a second before Whizzer responded. "Like different timelines?" There was a light, curious tone to his voice. It almost didn't sound as guarded anymore.

"Yes!" Marvin responded with a grin, now bordering on smug.

See?

He was right, as always.

"So, like I asked you, Whizzer, do you think we're together in every universe?"

Marvin was smart.

He had even slightly simplified the explanation, dumbing it down.

Completely on purpose, of course, so Whizzer could understand it—and he did!

Why else would he have fallen silent again, except to ponder Marvin's brilliant question?

Marvin couldn't see his face, but surely—

The head leaning on his shoulder rolled away.

Whizzer turned his back to him.

"Sure, Marvin. I bet in every universe you end up with me in your bed after every argument, just like this one. Just like earlier. That's what you want to hear, right?" 

The guardedness was back.

The stiffness in Whizzer's voice, the laugh, the scoff, the sigh—even a slight crack that Marvin couldn't even begin to deduce the cause of.

He didn't care to. Because the guardedness angered him.

Why couldn't Whizzer just pretend to care for once?

Marvin scoffed back, louder. "Right, of course. Of course that's what I meant, Whizzer, what else would I mean? That's all this relationship is good for, isn't it?" Marvin snarls out in response, tone carefully flat in a way that could easily fall on the side of either sarcastic or serious.

He wasn't sure which Whizzer thought it was, but he heard no sound back other than the shuffling noises of the body next to him shifting even farther away.

"Besides... you're obviously not smart enough to understand the complexities of my question—"

Marvin continued like he always did during arguments, picking his brain for insult after insult, each more personal than the last...

Until this time, Whizzer stopped him.

"Just go to sleep, Marvin."

Marvin snapped his jaw shut. He debated yelling at Whizzer for not letting him finish, for seeing his words as unimportant.

Typically he would have assumed Whizzer wanted that.

This time though, Whizzer's voice just sounded tired.

It also held something in particular. Something Marvin just couldn't figure out, certainly not the usual firey tone that said it was time for another fight.

Marvin scoffed again.

It was half-hearted.

"Right. Of course." he mumbled spitefully, before shuffling away too, rolling onto his side so that his back was to Whizzer's side of the bed.

Marvin didn't want to lay on his back anymore.

If Whizzer changed his mind about avoiding him at any point during the night, he'd just have to find someone else to lean on.

Chapter Text

"Do you think we're together in every universe?"

"Hm?"

Whizzer's voice was laced with sleep, groggy and low.

Marvin almost couldn't make it out.

It also didn't help that Whizzer was currently using Marvin's neck as a pillow, with his face pressed almost flat against it, muffled.

"What?" Whizzer asked, finally managing to drag himself out of his tired haze—as well as drag his face up and off of where it had been laying so he could lock eyes with Marvin.

Marvin would never get enough of Whizzer's eyes. He was sure of it.

He was happy to have Whizzer back.

In every way. Awake together, or asleep in eachother's arms—but he just couldn't deny that when those brown eyes landed on him, he swore his heartbeat increased tenfold.

Even now, still looking laughably sleep-drunk, Whizzer's gaze held an emotion that Marvin couldn't believe he had earned.

Love.

Marvin couldn't believe he had earned it, because he hadn't.

Not in his mind.

Maybe in Whizzer's, as the other man often told him time and time again to just leave the past in the past.

Marvin had been revised, and it was still all too shocking for himself to comprehend. He just wasn't used to it.

Being happy.

Making others happy as well.

It made him feel almost nauseous—but in that satisfied way you feel after eating a few too many sweets. Not too uncomfortable, but just enough that you don't want to move.

So you don't.

You lay there, and get lost in it.

Marvin had been doing exactly that when he felt a finger poke his chest. He made a noise of confusion, looking down to see a slightly frustrated, yet very amused-looking Whizzer.

"I said... what did you say? You can't just wake me up by saying something and then not tell me what it was. Consequences of your own actions, Marv."

Marvin suddenly looked sheepish. Anxiety spurred him on to gently pull at his knuckles as he scanned his gaze across the smug face of his lover...

...waiting.

"Do you think we're together in every universe...?"

Immediately, Whizzer's brows shot up. "That's-that's what... I said." Marvin added unnecessarily, barely able to keep his voice steady.

By the time Marvin had stopped stumbling over his words, Whizzer had already begun to laugh.

It wasn't a chuckle, wasn't tainted with bitterness or sarcasm, or pity.

It was a full on giggle, Whizzer's eyes sparkling and face scrunching up in that gorgeous way that Marvin loved.

He couldn't help but watch, enraptured, heart once again beating so fast that he couldn't even begin to keep track.

When Whizzer finally caught his breath, their eyes met once more.

They stayed like that for a moment, a silence settling over the room.

A reminder that it was only them there. Alone.

Together.

Whizzer broke their gaze first, moving to lay his head back down against Marvin's neck. "God, I sure hope so." He murmured, face so close that Marvin could feel the vibrations of his words, feel his lips moving.

Marvin wanted to memorize it. All of it.

The vibrations. The sensations. The words.

Especially the words.

Marvin bent his head down, before burying his nose in Whizzer's hair and planting a kiss there.

"Me too."

He whispers those two words of his own. Two simple words—he tells them and hopes Whizzer hears.

Then, silence falls again.

Marvin lifts his face to gaze wistfully at the ceiling above, and begins to wonder...

What more can he say?

Chapter Text

"Do you think we're together in... every universe?"

There's a pause before one of the words. It's not on purpose.

Yet, they both still notice it.

Every.

The pause is only there because Marvin had begun to feel a lump form in his throat, and had paused to swallow it down.

Had begun to feel tears prick at his eyes.

Had paused to compose himself.

Every.

Maybe that word would have been easier to say the days before.

Days like the ones where Marvin had been able to lose himself in the fantasy that God had intervened. Sent them a miracle. 

Days like the ones where he wasn't even the only one that thought that—that Whizzer was on the way to recovery.

Days like...

Well.

Days like that.

Marvin felt a shift on the bed. The white hospital bed that was so small, that it was practically impossible to not.

He doesn't turn to look yet.

"No."

Suddenly, Marvin feels like he can't breathe.

He turns to look.

"What?"

When he does, Whizzer is already staring directly into his eyes, smiling softly.

Of all the expressions that Marvin had expected to see after what Whizzer had just said, that was not one of them.

"No. I don't think we're together in every universe..." Before Marvin can reply, Whizzer shakily lifts an arm to caress his face. Out of the corner of his eye, Marvin can see the fluids steadily running through the IV tube sticking out of it.

"...do you regret us getting to be together in this one?"

The words are spoken so tenderly that Marvin nearly screams.

Nearly screams that, no, he doesn't regret them getting to be together.

Nearly screams that he does regret them not getting to stay that way.

...but that would be underestimating Whizzer.

His pretty, handsome, smart Whizzer.

Marvin can see in those brown eyes that he already understands.

So Marvin doesn't scream. Instead, he talks.

"I'd do it again." He says this so surely, it should have surprised himself... except it didn't.

Because the words are true. Spoken much firmer than the whispers they'd shared previous.

"I'd like to believe that I'd do it again..." he shrugs in jest, exaggerating a sheepish expression for a single second before dropping both to instead reach for Whizzer's hand.

He perfectly knitted their fingers together, still resting on his own cheek.

"...and again, and again, and—" with each repetition, Whizzer's face grew brighter, until it lit up in a gorgeous smile, a raspy laugh letting loose alongside.

Marvin missed when Whizzer's laughs didn't sound so raspy.

That train of thought is halted by someone tightly squeezing his fingers, and Marvin found that he had already dropped their hands from his face—thankfully still keeping their grip intertwined—and had also turned to face the ceiling. He had done all of this unknowingly.

Without even meaning to.

He turned his head back to face Whizzer for a moment, sending him a genuine smile, before shifting it back up wistfully. This time, he meant to.

As the smile turned sad, Marvin murmured the words that came to his mind first.

They echoed purposefully through the mostly-silent hospital room.

"Who'd believe that we two would end up as lovers?"