A Birth day

"He's fine," Marcus said. "It was a tie, incidentally. Robert would prefer he cool it a little, though."

Evan had seen Aria go off to her room to pout, and he had seen Marcus and Angus go to run to blow off steam. He went outside and over to Tara.

"I think this is a bad time," he told her quietly. "I think we need to go. We can stay another time."

"Okay," Tara sighed. She whistled for Evie and Faith, and she motioned to them. Evan went into the house and said quietly to Angus.

"We're going to go. We'll catch you another time. Thanks for the invitation, but this isn't a good time, clearly. I hope things smooth out, and when she comes, you call me, okay? I'll stand with you..." Evan said.

"Ev, no, " Angus began.

"It's Fine, Bro," Evan smiled warmly, taking ahold of Tara's hand while Tara and the girls joined hands. Evan ported them out. Angus sighed heavily, frustrated. Now, Marcus was angry and frustrated.

"Excuse me," Marcus said, turning. He headed upstairs. "What's the problem?" he asked Aria quietly, angry, trying not to raise his voice.

"She doesn't understand as much as she thinks she does," Angus sighed. "You've learned not to go along on every mission, and she really does need to learn that lesson. Even with as much training as she's had, his training wasn't necessarily better, but it was just different. There are going to be times when the assignments are entirely too violent and dangerous to take a lot of people on, especially missions that she might not have the training for. Her personal relationship with him does not grant her a carte blanche to go everywhere he goes. When she gets touchy like this and wants to go every place he goes, she scares the effing shit out of him."

"And you need to trust me to be able to know what jobs I can handle and which ones I can't," Marcus told Aria. "which ones I can take a partner or back up on, and which ones I just can't risk it with. I am not whoever you lost. I'm sorry that happened to you, but do give me a tad bit of credit. I do appreciate your concern, but even observant as you are, there are going to be places I go where I just don't bloody dare take you along. I trust you to know the things you're trained for, and I'd appreciate it if you trusted me for the things I specialize in."

"So we were sleeping together even then, and you chose not to tell me about it? As if your brother's death on a mission wasn't important? Lovely," Marcus sighed. He got out some clean clothes from the dresser. "I need to shower. It was a hard run, and I need to clean up. You'd better go enjoy your flight." He turned and headed into the bathroom, having no words left.

"I honestly don't know if Aria knows why," Angus said quietly to Ruby, "of all the Department of Mysteries workers past or present that Robert knows about or has the ability to access the personnel files of, Robert chose Marcus Belby and brought him all the way back from Bulgaria for, but I know what's in his resume because I was the one who vetted him when Robert wanted to hire him. His skills and his track record of espionage missions and of personal protections were then and are still completely unmatched. Marcus is very much aware of that, and he's also very much aware that he doesn't dare rest on his laurels. That's why he works hard and trains even harder.

"Michael's missions are to slip into dangerous places and either rescue someone or to steal something that will benefit our country in one way or another. In a lot of ways, Marcus's work was always the polar opposite of that. He was often hired to go in and 'eliminate threats and problems.' He was sent in to incapacitate a person's efforts or their devices or their plans or some other thing. Sometimes dark arts plans need to be wrecked, stolen, obliterated. They have both been the people that would quite willingly go as close to the portal of Hell as they could get without crossing the point of no return. They both weigh every single bloody choice along the way to make sure they have at least some tiny little pathway out to come home. And you know that sometimes that comes down to mere fractions of seconds. I can't honestly say I know if Aria understands that or is ready to deal with it."

Marcus wanted to shout at her and say, "YES! When your brother is a member of our mission team and he dies on that mission, you bloody well speak up, especially when your brother keeps coming up in your head every single time I need to go on a mission, and especially when we've been back from that mission now for months. Surely you could have found a minute in the last several months to say something, and yet you didn't. YES! You should have told me!" But he didn't. Didn't say a syllable. He stayed silent, and he went to shower.

He got out of the shower, changed the sheets in the bedroom, set a cleaning spell in place, took the laundry downstairs and washed all his dirty laundry. He got out a glass and poured a couple inches of firewhiskey into it.

"Not polite to drink alone. Bring me one of those," Angus called to Marcus, wanting to just provide him a bit of support. Marcus poured him a glass and brought the bottle and both glasses. "You alright?"

"As much as I'm going to be," Marcus said.

"Go a little easy on her. She has a lot to learn yet about being on a team here. She's good at the tasks she knows. She needs some growing time," Angus said.

"Yeah. That's probably all there is to it," Marcus said, as the clock chimed five.

"The boys are going to be home soon," Angus told Ruby. "You need any help making the gravy for the crown roast or getting supper on the table?"

"Okay. Tell me if I can help, though," Angus said. "In the meantime, I think I'm going to get rid of the diaper stench." He got out a couple clean diapers and change the diapers on both babies and threw the dirty diapers out, and then he fed them both and gave them each a small bottle of cool water to drink. "They're good for now, I think," he told Ruby.

The boys came home, and they knew they both needed to head upstairs to clean up. They showered after having mucked stalls all and then used the 'fertilizer' in the kitchen garden and took some over for the garden remodel behind the duplex. Now, they wanted to get the smell of the 'fertilizer' off them before they ate. It toko them a few minutes but they came down looking and smelling a good deal better.

The girls came in, silent now because they were very disappointed that Evan and Tara and the girls hadn't gotten to stay for supper, largely because Aria's behaviors made Evan and his family feel like they weren't welcome. It wasn't their position to say anything or to treat Aria differently. They had finished their homework, and they went to Angus quietly.

"Could we go stay tonight with Evie and Faith?" Anise asked.

"If Evan says you can, I'll take you," Angus said quietly. "Or I'm sure..."

"We'll take them. It's not hard or long. We'll do it," Marcus said.

"Can we do the floo call? We need the practice," Ginger said.

"Use the floo in our bedroom upstairs," Angus nodded. The girls raced upstairs to make their floo call.

"You know Evan will certainly say yes," Angus told Ruby. "I think its fine, though. They've had a tough day. Perhaps some unwinding in Tuscany will be good for them." Marcus saw Finn wanted to go out, and he went to the door to let him out and brought in the evening paper. He looked at the headline.

"Well, this is going to disappoint them," Marcus said, handing the paper to Angus and pointing to an article on the bottom half of the front page.

"Attack by Shapeshifter at Beauxbatons' Academy Causes Cancellation of Spring Ball," Angus read. "Damn. That was my fault. I'm gonna have to somehow make it up to them."

"You didn't do it. That was Priscilla. You saved them from having dead students."

"It was to lure me out because the girls go to school there," Angus said. "I don't know what would have happened if I hadn't gone."

"With a fruitcake like Priscilla? She'd have killed students til you showed up," Marcus said. "We made the right call. And if Robert had thought for one moment that we shouldn't have gone, he'd not have sent us."