Mark's Luke Cage [pt. II]

_Written in collaboration with NamiCwhaan

Claire Temple strode into Luke's office, flanked by an unassuming young man with brown hair, dressed in jeans and a black fleece, as well as a stunningly beautiful young woman, her curves accentuated by a tight, spangled jean jacket over a blue star-emblazoned t-shirt. A Cap-fan apparently. Very definitely not wearing a bra, distractingly.

As Luke approached to greet them, he couldn't help but notice an overpowering scent of body odor emanating from the young man.

"Luke! It's so good to see you!" Said Claire with warmth as she hugged him immediately.

Luke embraced Claire, the bond between them as strong as ever despite the years that had passed. As he held her by the arms, he couldn't help but notice that she looked amazing, beautiful as ever but exuding an aura of genuine joy and certainty that he had never seen in her before. "Good to see you, Claire," he said. "It's been too long."

Claire hesitated for a moment before speaking. "Luke, I know we haven't spoken in a while, but I need your help. These two are in trouble, and I think you might be the only one who can help them."

"Of course." He let go of her to turn to them and immediately took the hand the boy offered.

"Hi. I'm Mark Williams." His other hand came into clasp Luke's tightly as he continued and Luke had to stifle the urge to wrinkle his nose at the strength of the guy's odor, "And this is my girlfriend, America. America Chavez."

Several things became clear to Luke as this guy sort of held on to his hand. First, Mark was harmless and not nearly so interesting as anything Claire had to say. And second-

And second… a jolt shot through Luke's body as a wave of knowledge crashed over him, leaving him reeling. He had been living a lie, a fabrication created by Thanos.

The realization hit him like a ton of bricks, and yet, at the same time, it was as if he had always known. The memories he had held dear for so long were nothing more than a cruel illusion, a twisted version of reality that he had been **** to live with for five long years. He felt violated, his very soul twisted and molded into something unrecognizable, all at the hands of a mad alien with a twisted sense of humor.

But now, with the Avengers' reversal of the Snap, everything was starting to make sense. Luke could see the paths that he and others like him had been **** to follow, their lives twisted and manipulated like demented wind-up toys. It was a bitter pill to swallow, but at least he could finally see the truth.

Still holding Luke's hand, Mark's flippant voice cut through the uneasy silence. "You alright there, bro?"

Luke's free hand moved to rub at his face, the weight of recent events weighing heavily upon him. "Yeah... yeah, just been a weird couple of weeks. For all of us." He turned to America, offering a reassuring smile. "Now how can we help you guys? What kind of trouble? If you need a place to stay, we've got room here at the club for a bit while we look into setting up something more long-term…"

Mark finally released his grip on Luke's hand and Luke gestured for the two visitors to take a seat in the chairs arranged before his desk. Claire, however, seemed hesitant, shifting in her seat as she struggled with something to say.

Finally, she spoke, her words carrying a hint of guilt. "Well, Mark and America aren't actually the ones who need help. It's you, Luke. You're the one Mark can help. Look, I know. I know you're like me."

Luke's gaze snapped to Claire, ignoring the presence of the young couple beside her. He felt a growing sense of unease and an inkling of understanding as to what she was alluding to. "What do you mean, like me?"

Claire gave him a frank look, her eyes full of compassion. "Your memories, Luke. They're not real. They were fabricated, just like mine were."

Luke couldn't believe it even as he realized it made perfect sense.

A feeling of hope appeared as he wrapped his mind around the idea that Claire too had had her memories twisted.

If his memories were fake, then maybe... just maybe... there was a chance that the memories he shared with Claire were real. That they were still friends, maybe even more, in that other world where their memories hadn't been twisted and manipulated.

He blinked and took notice of the fact that the two kids were making out in their chair, Mark's hand pretty vigorously groping one of America's large breasts through her shirt. The boy also appeared to be smuggling a sub sandwich in his pants for some reason. None of which, he knew, was worth paying much attention to at the moment, as he looked back at Claire, "No shit? That's incredible. I gotta say I'm actually a bit relieved that I'm not the only one I know as messed up as that is."

"No, no! It's fine. Better than fine, actually. Mark has a sort of… power, I guess. He can recover parts of who we are. He helped me learn so much about who I really am!"

Mark's tone was a bit smug, "I got real deep down inside of Claire…"

America giggled, one of her hands rubbing and sliding all around the big lump running down one pantleg.

Luke scrutinized the unassuming man before him. "Really?" he asked, crossing his arms. "What's he do? Hypnosis or something?"

Despite his burning curiosity about Claire's own revelations about herself, Luke knew that discovering his true self in the present was paramount. Nothing else could take precedence until he had sorted himself out.

"No. It's not like that." Mark had shifted his girlfriend to one side on his lap as he leaned forward to give Luke his full attention, "I ask questions. I… investigate. As we go through the process, I learn more truths about who you really were in that other world. The real one, not this fake crappy one."

Luke couldn't deny the validity of Mark's words. He had struggled tirelessly against the unfairness and injustice that plagued Harlem, and now he understood why it seemed like such a fruitless battle. It wasn't meant to be this way.

As Mark raised his arm, Luke absently gave him a fist-bump.

"Alright, shoot. What's your question?"

The boy smirked and thought for a moment before asking, "Where were you born?"

Luke snorted at the innocuous question, "Savannah. Georgia."

Mark nodded before carefully placing two fingers to his temple and closed his eyes. After a moment, he said, "You were born in Markstown…in the Duchy of…oh let's say Storm- Great Storm."

Any skepticism about the kid, any notion that he was some sort of con-artist dissipated, replaced by an unwavering certainty that he was indeed born in Markstown within the Duchy of Great Storm. That name may have seemed fantastical, but it resonated with him in a deep and personal way.

"That's… right. I can't believe it but it's true…"

Claire beamed, her eyes gleaming with warmth and enthusiasm. "I envy you. I still don't know where I'm from in the real world."

"Let's remedy that, shall we? Your birthplace is Tatooine!" Mark exclaimed, causing America to titter and clutch her hand over her mouth. "Which, naturally, is situated in the Romonov Barony!"

As Claire's eyes went wide at that, Luke asked Mark "Can you tell me more? All I've got are the names. I have all these fake memories of my family back in Savannah…"

"All in good time, my man. Time for the investigation part. Fist Bump." Naturally, Luke bumped knuckles with the guy and listened as he continued, "Take off all of your clothes."

Luke's eyebrows rose, "Damn, really?". That was more than a bit awkward, but he knew he had to do exactly as this guy said if he was going to learn who he was. Mark was a non-entity. Claire had seen it all before. But Luke generally didn't have any business exposing himself to a girl only a little more than half his age like America. Not to mention that this was his office and he maintained a casual relationship with his people that saw them popping in whenever they thought it was necessary.

But needs must when the devil drives and his hands were already unbuttoning his shirt as the other three watched expectantly, Claire having shifted over to join America on Mark's lap for some reason.

When he stripped down to his boxers, piling his clothes on his desk he gave Mark a questioning look. His response was to hold out his hand for another fist-bump which Luke reciprocated, before saying. "I've discovered something else about you. You're a dedicated nudist. You positively loathe wearing clothes, and with skin as tough as yours, why should you?"

"It's not really a surprise, considering where you come from. The real society you belong to is pretty relaxed about nudity, and Great Storm is practically all nude all the time."

Upon hearing this, Luke felt a profound realisation about himself wash over him, filling him with a sense of euphoria. With a broad grin, he shed his last garment and stood there, unencumbered by clothing, feeling more like himself than ever before.

The three fully clothed people all piled in one chair before him were all smiles as well and Luke didn't mind at all as their eyes roamed up and down his naked body.

Soon enough Mark and America were getting to their feet while Claire remained seated. He paid them little mind as he kept his attention on her, well aware of what she and he had been doing the last time he'd been buck naked, "So you know a lot about where we're from-"

"Not everything but yea, quite a bit. Mark's still working with me. It takes time. And don't ask. Anything I say will just interfere. It's gotta be Mark that wakes your truth." She smiled and spoke feelingly, "It's so wonderful, that I can say."

A hand impacted sharply with Luke's ass while another sort of fiddled with his dangling penis. He wasn't sure who was doing what as the two hovered around him. He was far more interested in Claire though their commentary made it hard to continue the conversation.

"This is this universe's weird across-the-board debuff to Charisma stats, isn't it?"

"Totally. Luke back in our 'verse is built like a brick wall, shoulders like twice as wide, muscles like bulging hams and all that.”

Luke felt the girl's finger slip between his penis and balls as she raised his still soft member to sit propped upon the digit, though he was definitely feeling the blood start to flow down there now, and she continued, "You know, I've obviously never seen our Luke's junk but it's just gotta be bigger than this, right?”

"He's not hard, you know." said Mark as America sort of folded Luke’s penis to the right and to the left.

"No Manches! You think this little guy is going to grow up to be a Chuzalongo? No es bueno, no no." she punctuated her statement by fingering Luke’s testicles, lifting them and letting them drop.

"You think that about literally every penis except mine."

Luke met Claire's eyes and they exchanged knowing smiles, there was something of an agreed awareness of the insouciance of young people between them. But more probably it was from shared memories of their previous sexual history. Claire had had no complaints, except of course, from soreness back at the beginning after he'd 'stretched her out with that big black dick'.

What Mark and America had been referring to during their irreverent chatter became clear when the guy held up a smartphone whose screen showed a picture of an **** bodybuilder who clearly spent every waking hour either eating his weight in turkey breast, broccoli, and protein powder or at the gym power-lifting exclusively. The 'Hulk-lite' brother was also in the midst of a temporary pump and exceedingly dehydrated for the picture, probably for a competition based on the tiny thong he was wearing and Luke opened his mouth to comment to that effect when Mark said, "You're supposed to look like this. You need to be at least as muscular and cut as this fella. When you're not on guard-duty or resting, you'll be in the gym or eating what you need to get this big."

Right. 'Our Luke' was the one he'd been in the real world before Thanos snapped him here with all of these fake memories. It just hadn't occurred to him that it hadn't just been his mind that was changed but his body too.

As he looked down at his own form, he felt a wave of discomfort wash over him, as if he didn't quite belong in his own skin. He was meant to be a towering behemoth of a man, a sculpted masterpiece of muscle and sinew. Instead, he felt weak and...small. The very thought of having allowed himself to become so puny filled him with disgust.

His anger towards Thanos increased by a tiny fraction, though he knew it paled in comparison to the staggering amount of destruction and devastation the alien had wrought upon this planet. And yet, Luke couldn't believe that in the midst of all that, Thanos had still found the time and inclination to strip him of his powerful physique as well. It was a small insult in the grand scheme of things, but it was an insult nonetheless.

Thanos’ plan was to cut the universe in half… and in the process, made Luke half a man.

He pushed all that aside, just happy to have reclaimed more of his identity. Luke realised that he now knew what kind of career he had in the other world; he had been a bodyguard.

Clapping his hands, he said, "Alright. What's next?"