It's final here!!!
Julius had always been deathly afraid of heights. When he was little, he never joined his brothers in climbing trees or leaning over bridges to watch the Seine slip by below. Even glancing up at the towering spires of the cathedrals they walked past was enough to turn his stomach.
So it was with horror that day that he read the first entry on the daily list of janitorial tasks Pete had tacked to the door of their quarters: Clean Hall windows inside and out.
No, please, no, he thought helplessly, sitting down heavily on the bed and putting his face in his hands.
“What’s wrong, Jules?” Oswald asked from the table in the corner. He and Mickey sat with two cups of coffee and a stack of crepes that they were busy tucking away. “Did Pete give us stable cleaning again?”
“Worse,” Julius groaned, the list crumpled up in his fist. “We have to clean the windows today. Inside and out.”
“Ah,” Oswald said, furrowing his eyebrows. “Well, that’s unfortunate.”
“He KNOWS I hate heights!” Julius cried in despair. “He’s doing this on purpose!”
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Mickey said thoughtfully, cupping his coffee mug in two hands.
Julius felt dread pulsing in his stomach, threatening to upend the crepes he had eaten. Meanwhile Oswald tapped the side of his mug, thinking. “Maybe you can work on the ground windows by yourself?” he offered. “Then me and Mickey can do the higher floors.”
“He’d think I was trying to slack off,” Julius muttered, then clutched his upset stomach. “I’m gonna be sick.”
“Oh!” Mickey said brightly. “If you do get sick, hen he’ll think you're ill and you can lie in bed while we clean.”
“That’s a non-factor in Pete’s mind,” Oswald countered. “Remember last winter when we all had the flu? We still had to scrub floors for three hours.”
“Oh yeah…” Mickey paused. “Shoot. Well, maybe we can blindfold Julius, so he doesn’t see the ground from up high?”
“Then he can’t see what he’s cleaning, doofus. Maybe we could get a dummy of Julius and make Pete think he’s cleaning with us, and he can sneak off and work on something else.”
As they started shooting more hare-brained ideas back and forth, Julius smiled slightly in spite of himself and set the list down on his bed. “No, I can do this, guys. I’ll be fine. We’ll need all three of us to get everything done on time, anyways. If Pete wants to give me chores I hate, fine. I’ll just… stomach my way through it.”
He stood up, handed them the list, and started gathering tools from the corner cupboard to keep his hands busy. Mickey stuffed another crepe in his mouth while he read it through. His ears drooped at the massive list:
-polish furniture in the ballroom
-clean and polish the floors of the throne room
-shovel gravel on the garden paths
-set up rat traps in the cellars
-scrub ballroom stairs
-clean all the fireplace grates and chimney
-replace leaking water pipes in the basement
And that was just the first side of the paper, he realized, flipping it around and seeing another long list on the back.
“Does he think we can freeze time?” Oswald exclaimed in shock, reading the list over Mickey’s shoulder. “We can’t do all this in a day! And some of these aren’t even our duty,” he noticed indignantly, pointing to a task that read -clean musketeer capes in storage. “We’re not maids!”
“I suppose all the maids and court servants must be busy with the coronation preparations,” Mickey reasoned, although he too was frowning at the list. “We’re going to have to skip dinner and maybe supper to get this done… We should probably grab some food to bring with us.” He stood and stretched, then grabbed his musketeer hat and put it on.
Julius held out a bucket and rag to each of them. “Guess we’d better get started, then? If we hurry, we can fix those pipes before we start on the windows.” He was mostly successful at keeping the shakiness out of his legs. Mickey nodded in agreement.
Oswald sighed and gulped down the last of his coffee, then picked up his bucket and rag and followed his brothers out the door. It’s going to be a long one, he thought.
~~~~~~
The morning went by much too quickly for Julius’s liking, and as much as he tried to cherish the moments spent soaking wet and wrestling with pipes in the basement, before he knew it they were headed outside to begin the window cleaning. Mickey and Oswald chatted aimlessly as they walked ahead, letting Julius lag behind them.
It frustrated the cat how easily heights filled him with terror. He wasn’t entirely sure what had borne the fear inside him- It was just the thought of being so high up in the air with nothing underneath him, falling and plummeting forever, dropping like a rock through the sky to the ground with the wind rushing by and everything so far below and nothing to catch him or save him— He shook his head furiously, heart thumping wildly in his throat. Thinking like that isn’t going to help you, Julius! Just bite the bullet and get through it. You’re just going to wash some windows 50 feet in the air. It’s not that bad. Steeling his nerves, he jogged ahead to catch up with Mickey and Oswald as they reached the shed.
The suspended scaffolding system used to maintain the higher floors of the palace was nothing more than a few rickety wooden boards lashed together with twine, two pulleys strung with frayed rope on either side, and a couple of loosely nailed-in iron railings, all of which lay cobbled together and largely unused in a shed outside the Great Hall. It was, in Oswald’s humble opinion, the worst feat of engineering in the entire world. I wonder what it would take to convince Pete to let me fix it, he thought offhandedly as they carried it around to the front and began attaching the ropes to the pulleys.
Julius took a minute to pull himself together as he gathered the supplies and lifted them onto the platform next to a couple of dusty empty crates. You’ll be fine, it’s going to be fine, he chanted desperately in his head as Mickey and Oswald started tugging at the ropes to lift the scaffolding into the air. The courtyard fell slowly but surely away from under him, and he felt his insides once again lurching as if trying to escape his abdomen. He clutched the bag of food they had brought along with trembling hands.
“Alright, first window,” Oswald announced as he and Mickey stopped tugging and tied the ropes into place. Julius swallowed hard and tore his gaze away from the ground twenty feet below to start work on scrubbing the windows. It was slow work, but gradually the grime and muck disappeared under the determined scrubbing of the three brothers. For a while they worked in silence, save for the squeak of wet cloth on glass and the occasional splash from the water bucket; after a while, Mickey broke stillness with a small sigh.
“This is going to take all day,” he said despairingly.
Oswald rubbed at a spot on the window and shrugged. “Maybe, but all we can do is just keep working at it. We’re almost done with this floor, at least.”
“But we have the whole rest of the list to finish on top of this,” Mickey replied, wringing out his rag anxiously. “And Captain Pete wanted all of it finished today!”
“Honestly, Mick, Pete has to know we can’t do all that in one day. If we have to push some of those tasks into tomorrow, then we’ll do that,” said Julius resignedly. “And he’ll just have to deal with it.”
“But he’d think we weren’t trying hard enough. He’d think we’re incompetent, or… or lazy.” The small mouse dipped his rag back in the bucket with a quiet sploosh. “It’s just… I guess I want Cap’n Pete to see me as a hard worker. I want him to think I’m trying my best.”
Julius frowned. “You are a hard worker, Mick. I’ve told you that.”
“But… he doesn’t think I am,” Mickey sighed. “We try so hard every day and he still doesn’t take us seriously. And if he doesn’t think we’re hard workers, if he doesn’t think we can work together, then he won’t... I mean, we have a bad track record, but couldn’t he change his mind? Couldn’t he just see we really want to be musketeers?”
So that’s what this is all about, Julius realized. That’s what was bothering him this morning too, I bet. He shifted from one foot to the other uncomfortably; what could he say? He wanted nothing more than to reassure him and Oswald that of course Pete would make them musketeers, but that would just be lying. The last thing he planned on doing was sugarcoating anything for his brothers; at the same time, he didn’t want to voice his real doubts. His doubts about whether they should be musketeers at all, whether it would really ever work out for them. No, that would just discourage Mickey further. The best option, then, was uneasy silence.
“Well… I think there’s a chance,” Oswald pitched in, hands on his hips. “I mean– Pete’s not an easy one to persuade, and it’s not like he’s ever presented the opportunity to us in the past five years, and he likes reminding us about how much he loathes us every chance he gets, but…” he shrugged. “Rome wasn’t built in a day, so we might as well keep trying and keep hoping, right?”
He grinned and twirled his rag jauntily, and Mickey smiled back gratefully. “Anyways, whether we’re musketeers or janitors, I don’t see the hurt in working hard. That doesn’t mean we need to bust a gut doing an impossible amount of jobs in one day, though. Let’s just take it slow.” Mickey nodded, looking relieved.
Julius sighed quietly. “Well,” he said, examining the windows one more time. “If we’re done on this level, then we’d better get to the next floor.” Mickey jumped up quickly and ran to the first pulley, Oswald heading to the other. Julius, suddenly remembering they were suspended in midair, swallowed hard and busied himself with the buckets.
The platform had started to rise shakily, when suddenly there was a creak of doors opening below and the sound of crunching boots and chatting filled the air. Mickey gasped in excitement, straining to see down to the ground while pulling on the rope. “The musketeers are coming out to drill!” Oswald leaned over the rail to watch, his eyes glowing.
“Keep going up,” Julius reminded them, staring at the sky now, and Mickey gave an absent tug on the rope in reply. The musketeers had formed into rows and were listening to orders commanded by the hulking figure of Captain Pete. Soon the chinking of steel on steel filled the air as the musketeers sparred together. Mickey and Oswald were entranced, following every move, window cleaning forgotten. Sensing no movement, Julius tore his gaze away from the clouds to see his brothers leaning over as far as they could to watch. “Can we go UP?” he demanded impatiently. Startled, Mickey gave the rope a hard tug- too hard, it turned out.
The mossy old ropes in Mickey’s hands, unused to the sudden stress, groaned their last and snapped. Julius barely had time to yell in fright before the entire end of the platform swung downward, throwing him over the side. Oswald was the luckiest- his grip on the ropes gave him enough support to stay in place. Mickey, however, was thrown stomach-first against the railing, punching all the air out of his lungs.
In a moment of panic he gasped painfully, blinking stars out of his eyes as his feet found traction on the wood. The ground swung back and forth below, a blur of stone and gravel. A frayed rope swung through the air, snapped in half. The sounds of training below had been replaced with shouts as the musketeers stopped drilling, although their attention barely registered in Mickey’s mind.
“Are you okay?” Oswald asked, his voice panicked. “Where’s Julius-?”
A puffed up white tail appeared over the edge, followed by the terrified face of Julius as he scrabbled at the railing. “HELP-!” he yowled, terrified. Mickey jumped out to grab his hand, attempting to haul his brother back up onto the platform with much yelling and clawing and wild thrashing (mostly from Julius). Oswald, clinging to the other rope at the top, started to feel it straining and snapping under his fingers. He barely had time to close his eyes with a heavy sigh before another loud SNAP pierced the air, completely severing the ropes holding up the lift.
For a few comical seconds, they hung in the air- three brothers, a rickety platform, and a sudsy soap bucket. Then those seconds ended, and the only thing Mickey and Oswald could hear was jumbled yelling and wind whistling by as the earth rushed up towards them like a giant stone fist ready to punch their brains out.
~~~~~~
“Are they dead?” “Sacre bleu… “It was those janitor boys again, of course." "Really? I thought the Captain already fired them." “How on earth did they do this…?” “I don’t see any movement.”
A crowd of musketeers surrounded the pile of wood and rope that lay in the courtyard, muttering and staring in shock. Dust swirled about underneath polished brown boots and swishing blue capes, and a few musketeers shook their heads, used to the shenanigans of those janitor brothers.
A small mouse, his head and shoulders poking out underneath a rotted board, blinked his eyes open blearily and looked around, dazed and disoriented. Through a raging headache he vaguely heard a booming voice commanding musketeers out of the way, not quite registering as a hulking figure made his way forward to stand, seething, over the wreckage. It wasn’t until a large, meaty hand shot out and grabbed him by the arm, yanking him free from the rubble with a swift tug that he came to and realized the dire situation they were in.
Dangling in the air by his arm, staring into the cold glaring eyes of Captain Pete, Mickey swallowed hard and smiled nervously. “Morning, Captain. I, uh, guess you might be a little upset…?” Upset wasn’t quite the word for what the snarling captain was. More like collasally, tremendously, completely pissed off. Mickey barely had time to mutter a prayer to Mère Marie before he was being dragged off across the courtyard under the glaring sun to an unknown, but almost certainly painful, fate.
____
A/N: GOD, FINALLY I'M DONE WITH CH 3!! I'm literally so sorry it took so long to post, I've had so much happening in my life and then of course writer's block hit... anyways, I plan on releasing chapters WAY more frequently now! Also sorry there was no illustration this time- more technical difficulties :( Anyways thanks for reading!!
Rating:
Teen And Up Audiences
Archive Warning:
Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Fandom:
DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Relationship:
None
Character:
Mark Beaks
Language:
English
Stats:
Published:2025-03-15Words:1,149Chapters:1/1Hits:0
Distant Memory's
1anon1
Summary:
Why was he so...pathetic?
Notes:
(See the end of the work for notes.)
Work Text:
Mark sat at his desk, idly scrolling through his waddle-gram feed. He tapped his fingers impatiently on the edge of his desk, his eyes darting between the screen and the piles of unfinished paperwork. He glanced out the window, the dimly lit city lights glowing. After a bit he put his phone down, getting up and crossing his arms, looking out the window.
He sighed, drawing a hand across his face. He checked his watch, 10:48pm. ‘Had I really been here for that long?’ he thought. Well, to be fair it was only him and his assistant still in the building, all the other employees' shifts ended. Even though technically there were physically two people left in the Waddle building, mentally…he felt alone.
Mark let out another long sigh, glancing at the empty office around him. The quiet hum of the building felt almost eerie at this hour. He turned back to the piles of paperwork, his thoughts drifting…turning darker…
He snapped out of his thoughts as he heard a knock on the office door. “Come in, Melanie” he said before quickly rubbing his eyes. His assistant walked in, a duffle bag across her arm “Mr Beaks? Do you want me to close up or should I stay a little longer to help?...” Melanie asked, peeking her head in with a concerned expression. Mark hesitated for a moment before answering, running a hand through his hair. "Huh? Oh—nah, you go ahead. I got it.” he said, though even he wasn’t sure he believed it. He forced her a reassuring smile.
She nodded, closing the door behind her, leaving Mark by himself in the room again. His smile faltered, as he heard her footsteps walking into the elevator.
Mark let out a long sigh, pinching the bridge of his beak before slumping back in his seat. He reached out his hand, his fingers hovering over his phone. But instead of scrolling again, he just sat there, staring at the dark phone screen, his own tired reflection looking back at him.
The reflection seemed to flicker to a younger boy that looked like him but his eyes had been blacked out, he knew exactly who it was. Mark let out a slow breath. His mind drifted—further and further, until he wasn’t in his office anymore.
The sound of arguing filled the house, sharp voices cutting through the air like a blade. Mark, no older than eight, sat curled up on the floor of his room, his oversized headphones clamped tightly over his ears. It didn’t block out everything.
“…lazy, good-for-nothing—!”
“You think I wanted this?!”
Mark squeezed his eyes shut, gripping his tail tightly in his hands—his mismatched tail feathers, the ones that made the other kids stare, laugh, and tug at him on the playground. His mom hated them. She always said they made him look ridiculous, like a walking joke.
“Marcus!”
His body tensed. He barely had time to take the headphones off before the door swung open. His mother stood there, her face twisted in frustration. “Why is your room such a mess? And take your hands off that tail—you look pathetic.”
Mark quickly let go, his feathers trembling as he muttered, “Sorry, Mother…”
She was about to answer, to gaslight him, to make him hurt. But his father called out to her again, his voice cutting through the house with a shake
She scoffed, rolling her eyes before slamming the door shut again, the force rattling his shelves. Her voice descended as she moved further away from his door. He swallowed hard, pulling his knees to his chest. He wanted to disappear.
Mark blinked, the memory fading, but the weight in his chest remained. He exhaled through his nose, rubbing a hand down his face as if that could wipe away the past. His fingers hovered over his phone again, but now, the idea of scrolling through meaningless posts, desperate attempts at validation, felt exhausting. Instead, he leaned back in his chair, staring up at the ceiling.
No matter how many years had passed, no matter how many followers he had, no matter how much wealth he flaunted—he still felt like that kid in his room, gripping his tail, hoping to be invisible. Only now, there was no tail to hold onto. Just an empty office, an unfinished workload, and the cold hum of silence pressing in on him.
He exhaled sharply, pushing the unfinished paperwork into a desk drawer. “Fuck it, I'll finish it tomorrow” he mumbled
Mark let out a sharp breath and shook his head, as if trying to physically shake off the weight pressing on his chest. He turned his chair, facing away from the city lights outside his window.
No. He wasn’t doing this tonight.
He pulled his laptop toward him and opened it with a click. The screen’s glow illuminated his tired face as he skimmed through the latest analytics for Waddle. Engagement numbers, trending topics, sponsorship deals—it was all there. A constant, never-ending stream of numbers and validation.
This was what he was good at, right? Staying relevant. Keeping the world’s eyes on him. Making sure people never forgot the name Mark Beaks.
His fingers hovered over the keyboard before he pulled up a blank post. Maybe a new Waddle-Gram update? A late-night thought? Something cool and mysterious to keep his followers intrigued.
Grinding past midnight. #CEOlife
…No, that was stupid. Too generic. He deleted it.
Instead, he drummed his fingers against the desk, thinking. His mind wandered back to the memory from earlier. That stupid room. That stupid tail. The way his mother had sneered at him like he was nothing.
A bitter chuckle left his beak. “Bet you’d love to see me now huh, mother?” he muttered under his breath, the last word filled with disdain.
Without thinking, he started typing again.
"Ever wonder if success actually fixes anything? Or does it just make the silence louder? Asking for a friend."
He stared at the words, re-reading them over and over. His thumb hovered over the ‘Post’ button.
Would his followers even get it? Would they think it was just another ironic joke? Maybe they'd hype him up, tell him he was killing it, that he was the coolest, the richest, the smartest.
But none of that changed the fact that right now, in this cold, empty office, it felt like none of it mattered.
Mark swallowed hard and—
Backspaced the entire post.
No one needed to see that.
Instead, he shut his laptop with a little more force than necessary and leaned back in his chair, running a hand down his face. Maybe he should just go home. Get some sleep. Maybe tomorrow, everything would feel a little less…loud.
But deep down, he already knew—
Tomorrow, the silence would still be there. Why was he so pathetic?
Notes:
Follow me on ao3 if you enjoy this stuff or is a Mark beaks fan!
1anon1
Mark beaks: I don't see how this day could get any weird- and here we go
*Gladstone Gander and Mark beaks holding a baby whilst sitting on a bench*
Magica Despell: Gah! What the- Dude! That is so messed up!
Mark beaks: I know right? I mean, future me, wearing sandals?
Magica Despell: No! I mean your gonna steal Gladstone from me! It's supposed to be "Magicstone" not "Beakstone", you home wrecking womaniser!
Mark beaks: And it looks like I didn't stop at men.
*Mark and Magica getting married. Mark wearing a dress and Magica wearing a suit*
Magica: Ah! *Sobs*
Mark beaks: Agreed, always thought I was the one wearing pants in this relationship
Rating:
Teen And Up Audiences
Archive Warnings:
Graphic Depictions Of ViolenceNo Archive Warnings Apply
Fandom:
DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Characters:
Mark BeaksEmma Glamour (Disney)
Additional Tags:
Verbal AbuseSuicidal ThoughtsSuicidal Thoughts Mentioned
Language: English Stats:Published:2025-03-11Words:644Chapters:1/1Hits:0
“Are you finally proud of me, mom?…”
1anon1
Summary:
Parents are meant to be caring and protective, shaping children into loving individuals who seek to help others. However, children who grow up without this nurturing guidance, but others who don’t grow up with these parents, develop a sense of mistrust and emotional detachment. Lacking love and support, they build walls around themselves, using power and ambition to protect their vulnerable, hollow inner self, focused more on surviving than on caring for others.
Notes:
⚠️Suicidal thoughts Warning⚠️ Why do all of the best ideas come to me at 3am tf😭
(See the end of the work for more notes.)
Work Text:
Parents are…well supposed to be caring and kind. Protecting their children in every aspect and possible way. Kids who have or had parents like this grow up to be loving and knowing and they often become heroes, looking to help and care for everyone and everything.
But when other children grow up without that nurturing guidance, they don’t develop the same sense of trust or safety. Instead, carrying the weight of unspoken pain, learning early that the world can be a place of cruelty. Mark beaks learned that lesson at a young age—his parents, distant and harsh, never taught him how to love others or how to expect love in return. He built walls, grew cold, and used his ambition and power as a shield, hoping no one would ever see how hollow he truly felt inside. It wasn’t about caring for others—it was about surviving, about protecting himself from the brokenness that threatened to consume him every time he let his guard down.
Marcus sat on the edge of his bed, staring at the floor, his small hands gripping the edge of the blanket tightly. The house was eerily quiet, the kind of silence that pressed on his chest and made it harder to breathe. He had just overheard his parents’ shouting match from the hallway—his father’s voice low but full of venom, his mother’s shrill and desperate, cutting through the thick walls of the house. He didn’t understand most of what was said, but it didn’t matter. He didn’t need to. He knew what it meant.
He wasn’t enough.
His father had said it before, but hearing it again made his heart ache with a pain he couldn’t name. "You're not the son I wanted," his voice echoed in Marcus’s head. Marcus clenched his fists, squeezing his eyes shut as tears threatened to spill. His throat tightened, and he tried to swallow the lump that had formed, but it wouldn’t go away. He didn’t want to cry—he wasn’t allowed to cry. That’s what his father would say. His mother would just roll her eyes. No one cared. No one ever cared.
The floor creaked under the weight of footsteps approaching his door. Marcus quickly wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and turned toward the sound. His mother appeared in the doorway, her expression unreadable but cold, like she was already distancing herself from the boy sitting on the bed.
"Stop acting like a baby," she snapped, crossing her arms over her chest. "We don’t have time for your whining." Her voice was cold and harsh “We don’t need you here, it’s better if you kill yourself…no one would care”
Marcus froze in place upon hearing his mothers words cut through the air. He didn’t reply. He didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t allowed to speak when they were angry…or any time for that matter, he didn’t dare too. So he sat there in silence, his small body trembling as he tried to hold himself together. He wanted so badly to shout, to ask why they didn’t love him the way he saw other parents love their kids. But he knew better than to ask. His voice wasn’t wanted here.
His mother’s gaze lingered on him for a moment before she sighed and turned away, leaving him alone again, trapped in the quiet, with the unspoken weight of being unwanted pressing down on him like a heavy blanket. ‘No one…’ the words replaying in his head, he was shaking.
He made a promise to himself that night. He was going to prove them all wrong, everyone who had ever hurt him. Because he was Mark beaks, and no one could stop him. Look out world, I’ll show you all. I’ll be someone you can’t ignore.
“Are you finally proud of me, mom?…”
Notes:
Thanks for reading chat, if you guys have ideas or want any free writing commissions feel free to ask me in the comments!
(I don’t own Mark beaks, but boy do I like giving him trauma😼the bitch needs therapy😭🙏)
Follow me on ao3 if you enjoy this stuff or a Mark beaks fan!
1anon1
*Mark holding an ice pack to his face, tears in his eyes*
Mark: someone punched me in the face for being named Mark :(
...
Gyro: That's gonna-...that's gonna leave a-
L
A
I Absolutely LOVE this, Pls continue it✨
((Chapter 2 is out now :D
ITS PRIDE MONTH BABY, WOO
Hope y'all have are safe
Don't forget there are ppl who support you just the way you are.
If your still having trouble figuring yourself out, it's ok
You have all the time in the world to figure yourself out
Rating:
Teen And Up Audiences
Archive Warning:
Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Fandom:
DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Characters:
Mark Beaks, Emma Glamour (Disney),(mentioned) Falcon Graves
Additional Tags:
Physical AbuseBlood and InjuryVerbal Abuse
Language:
English
Stats:
Published:2025-04-12Words:2,225Chapters:1/1Kudos:1Hits:4
Should have done it from the start
1anon1
Summary:
I always wondered what happened after Louie's eleven? Like with Mark beaks and Emma glamour. It must've been anything BUT good...oh no
Notes:
⚠️ BLOOD WARNING ⚠️
If there is any grammatical errors, let me know in the comments I couldn't edit it 😭
I would draw art to go with it but I wasn't born to draw🥲
(See the end of the work for more notes.)
Work Text:
Everything felt so still.
The music died and the flashing lights had faded. The once crowded hall-room of chatter and applause to those who would perform vanished and had been replaced with complete silence. only the echoes of the party remained, lingering like ghosts in the empty space.
Half-empty glasses were scattered across the tables, the faint scent of perfume and expensive champagne still clinging to the air. Everyone else had already left.
Mark beaks sat on the steps, he hadn't really moved from this spot since it was revealed he bought his mothers phone from Falcon Graves. He didn’t really have anywhere to go to. His hands buried in the pockets of his hoodie, his jaw tight. His feathers still bristled from the energy of the night, but it wasn’t excitement keeping him wired—it was something heavier.
Across the room, his mother, Emma Glamour, stood near the bar, swirling a glass of wine between her fingers. She hadn’t left with the others. Of course, she hadn’t.
She was watching him. Studying. Calculating. The silence stretched between them, thick and suffocating.
Then, finally—
"So." Her voice sliced through the air, cool and sharp as a blade. "That was quite the little… spectacle."
Mark didn’t answer. His grip in his pockets tightened.
Emma took a slow sip from her glass, eyes never leaving him. "Tell me, Marcus—was THAT supposed to impress me?"
Mark’s jaw clenched. His fingers curled into his hoodie pockets, he felt his nails biting into his palms, but he didn’t care. He didn’t look at her. Didn’t move.
She took another slow sip from her glass, savoring the moment. “But I’d have to admit,” she mused, tapping her perfectly manicured nails against the bar table, “I expected some embarrassment. Maybe even a little shame. But instead you're just… sulking”
Mark exhaled, looking away from her. “Yeah? And whatdda expect?” His voice came quieter than he intended it to be, but his voice was still laced with bitterness.
Emma tilted her head, amusement flickering in her eyes. “Oh, I don't know. Maybe for you to finally grasp what absolute disappointment you are.”
She gestured vaguely toward the empty ballroom, where Mark's hover-board was sitting looking disheveled from the aftermath of its burning. "Did you think this little stunt of yours would make you look clever? That people would see you as some brilliant mastermind?"
Mark’s feathers bristled, but he stayed silent. He didn’t want to give her the satisfaction.
Emma hummed, setting her glass down on the bar with a soft clink. She took a step closer. "It was pathetic, Marcus. Absolutely pathetic."
His breath hitched. The words struck like a slap, but he forced himself to keep still. Keep quiet.
Emma, of course, noticed. She always did.
She smiled. "Oh, come on. Nothing to say?"
Mark swallowed hard. His head dipped slightly, eyes burning holes into the floor.
Emma scoffed. "No witty comeback? No desperate attempt to prove yourself? Hmph." She shook her head, turning away slightly. "I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. You always crumble the moment things get real." She then turned with her back facing him, pouring another glass.
Mark’s hands twitched. His throat felt tight.
He knew where this was going.
It was always like this.
And yet, no matter how much he prepared, no matter how many times he told himself it wouldn’t get to him—
It always did.
Mark barely breathed. The silence stretched, pressing against his chest, thick and suffocating. He could feel Emma’s gaze on him, the weight of it heavy, like she was peeling back every layer he had, searching for the weakest point to sink her claws into.
Emma took a slow, deliberate sip of her wine, her expression unreadable. Then, finally, she spoke.
“You know what I don’t understand?” Her voice was smooth, almost bored, but Mark knew better. “Why you even bother embarrassing yourself like this.”
Mark’s feathers bristled, but he kept his head down, his fingers twitching in his pockets. He could already feel the familiar ache forming behind his eyes, the way it always did when she started talking like this.
Emma swirled the wine in her glass, her tone growing sharper. “All that effort. All that scheming. And for what? A burned-out hoverboard and a shattered reputation?” She let out a soft chuckle, shaking her head. “Pathetic.”
Mark’s jaw locked.
Emma sighed, setting her glass down with a deliberate clink. “I mean, honestly, Marcus. Did you really think you could fool everyone? That people would look at you and see anything other than what you are?”
Mark stayed quiet.
Because he knew what was coming next.
Emma’s voice dropped, slow and cutting. “You are not clever. You are not impressive. You are not—” she gestured vaguely at him, as if he was something distasteful “—anything”
Mark exhaled through his nose, staring hard at the floor, his vision blurring at the edges.
Emma took a step forward, her heels clicking against the polished floor. “But I suppose that’s always been the case, hasn’t it?” she mused. “No matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, you’ll always be nothing more than a desperate little boy, grasping at something just out of reach.”
Her voice softened, but not out of kindness. No, this was worse. It was that sickly-sweet, condescending tone. The kind that made his skin crawl.
“I mean, really. You bought my phone?” She let out a light, cruel laugh. “What did you think was going to happen, Marcus? That I’d be proud of you?”
Mark’s hands curled into fists inside his hoodie pockets. His nails dug into his palms, sharp enough to sting, but he barely felt it.
Emma’s expression remained cold, indifferent. “You have NO ONE, Marcus”
The words cut deep. They always did.
Mark squeezed his eyes shut for half a second, trying to swallow down the lump forming in his throat. He couldn’t let her see. He wouldn’t let her see.
He forced a breath, forced himself to smirk, even as his chest tightened. “Y’know… for someone who doesn’t care, you sure have a lot to say.”
Emma’s expression didn’t shift, but something in her eyes flickered.
Then, she smiled. A slow, dangerous thing.
“Oh, Marcus.” She let out a quiet laugh, shaking her head. “You really don’t get it, do you?”
She leaned in just slightly, voice lowering to a near whisper. “I love watching you fall apart.”
Mark inhaled sharply.
There it was.
There it always was.
Mark’s heart was pounding now, his entire body tense, and all the words he’d been holding back surged to the surface. The tears he fought to keep buried, the frustration, the rage—it was all mixing in a vicious storm inside him. He couldn’t stay quiet anymore.
“Shut. Up,” he spat, his voice hoarse with the weight of the emotions. It was quiet at first, but sharp, cutting through the silence that Emma had maintained between them like a jagged knife.
Emma didn’t flinch, not even for a second. Her eyes held a glint of something—amusement? Contempt? It didn’t matter. She was waiting for him to break, and now she knew she had him right where she wanted him.
“I said shut up,” Mark repeated, louder this time, his voice trembling with the force of the words he was struggling to contain.
But Emma only smiled, her lips curling into that cruel, knowing smirk. “Why, Marcus? You can’t handle the truth?” she taunted, her tone cold and condescending.
His hands were shaking now, his body trembling as the weight of everything crushed down on him. The sting of her words, the way she just...dismissed him, it all became too much. The silence between them felt suffocating, each second like another weight pressing on his chest, dragging him under.
“Just... stop,” he pleaded, but it barely came out as a whisper, too weak, too broken to have any power. He wanted to get up and leave, but he was rooted to the spot. Every part of him screamed to get away, but he couldn’t. Not when she was still standing there, her words swirling around him like a hurricane, dragging him deeper into the chaos.
But Emma wasn’t done yet. She leaned in closer, her voice sweet like poison. “You know, Marcus,” she started, her words slow and deliberate, “It’s almost sad, really. You think you can win me over? That buying my phone will suddenly make me see you for what you want me to see. But it won’t. Nothing ever will.”
Mark’s breath hitched, and that was it—he couldn’t hold it in anymore. His chest tightened as the heat of anger burned through him, and in one swift motion, he slapped her drink from her hand.
The glass hit the floor with a sharp crack, red wine splattering across the polished tile like blood. For a moment, everything went still again.
Emma looked down at the broken glass, then at her soaked hand. Her brow lifted just slightly. “Huh…”
Mark didn’t wait for the next cruel remark.
Something snapped.
He Lunged forward.
“SHUT UP!”
He slammed into her before she had a chance to react, and they both went stumbling back. Emma’s heels skidded across the floor, her wine-slicked hand reaching out instinctively—but there was no grace in the fall. No composure. They crashed into the bar table behind her with a thud, bottles rattling on impact, and then—
They hit the ground hard.
Mark landed partially on top of her, his breath knocked out of him as they both sprawled across the floor, tangled in the aftermath of it all. For a second, there was only the sound of heavy breathing, the sharp sting of impact, the echo of their bodies colliding.
Emma groaned beneath him, not out of pain, but more like disbelief. Or rage. Maybe both.
Mark didn’t move.
He stared at her, wide-eyed and shaking, chest heaving.
He hadn’t meant to—had he?
But something in him refused to feel guilt for it. Not yet. Not after everything.
Emma’s lip curled slowly, and her eyes burned into him with something more dangerous than fury.
But Mark barely flinched. He grabbed her wrist and shoved her back. “You think you can just say whatever the hell you want to me?!”
“I can,” she hissed, eyes blazing. “Because it’s true.”
Emma pushed him again—this time hard enough that he stumbled, and as soon as he did, she followed it up with a kick to his shin. It wasn’t graceful, but it made him grunt in pain, and it threw him off just enough for her to grab a handful of his hoodie and yank him forward again.
He grabbed her by the wrists, trying to pry her off. “Let—go—!”
“I should’ve done this years ago!” she snapped, forcing him off balance.
The two of them staggered, grappling like two animals—nothing clean about it, nothing elegant. Just raw, ugly rage. Mark’s hoodie bunched in her hands, and his feathers were a mess, sticking up from her clawing fingers. He tried to wrestle free, but she struck him again—her palm colliding with his jaw this time, sending his head snapping sideways.
“You’re insane!” he yelled, shoving her back again with all his strength.
And this time, Emma lost her footing completely. Her heel caught on a piece of broken glass, and she tumbled backwards—landing hard against the bar with a dull thud. Bottles rattled again, one falling and shattering against the floor.
Mark panted, chest heaving, eyes wild. His cheek stung, his fists clenched at his sides. He didn’t even realize he’d been hit that hard. His breathing was erratic. He couldn’t even see straight.
Emma pushed herself up from the bar, slowly. Her eyes were narrowed to slits now, her chest rising and falling. Her hair was disheveled, one of her earrings was gone, and her wrist was red from where Mark had grabbed her—but she didn’t care. She didn’t feel it.
She backed up slowly, until her spine hit the edge of the bar.
Still watching him.
Still seething.
Then—without breaking eye contact—her hand slid to the side. Resting near one of the untouched plates left over from the catering table. Her fingers brushed over it.
Mark froze for half a second.
He knew that look.
“You’ve got nothing, Marcus,” she said, breathless, her voice trembling with rage. “And you never will.”
Her hand gripped the plate.
And before Mark could react—
CRASH!
The plate sailed through the air and shattered against his face.
It hit with a sickening crack—white shards exploded in every direction, cutting across his cheek and forehead. He staggered back again, stumbling into a chair that toppled over with him. His vision swam. Blood ran down from a shallow cut just beneath his brow, warm and fast.
Mark lay there, stunned. Hands trembling. Breathing hard.
Emma just stood there, still by the bar, hand slowly lowering from the throw. Her chest was still rising and falling, her knuckles white.
She didn’t move. Didn’t speak.
And for a few seconds, neither did he.
Because something had broken.
Not just the plate. Not just the silence.
Something deeper.
And this time, it wasn’t going to be that easy to glue it back together.
Notes:
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Can animate, Can't draw 💻 Cartoon addict 😵💫Can you tell I like Mark beaks😼
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